The Life and Times of Sumire Shouda
by Corvus corone
Summary: For fanfic100; a series of ficlets about or including or referring to Sumire Shouda. Covers many genres from humour to angst with a main pairing of Koko/Sumire. Ch 31 - Sunrise - Mornings from Sumire, Wakako and Koko's perspective.
1. Beginnings

_A/N: I claimed **Sumire Shouda** for fanfic100. This will be a series of hopefully _100 very** short** drabbles._ By the way, I have next to no idea about her life history, so it's all made up and probably very un-canon. I suck at titles, therefore, there is no title 'cept for the prompt._

_DISCLAIMER: I don't own Gakuen Alice or Sumire, as much as I wish I did. Sigh._

**Beginnings**

The midwife sighed. The young woman's condition had already been too grave from her prolonged illness even before the labour pains started. There had been no hope for both the child and her to survive; as it was, she had requested beforehand that the child be saved if it came to that. Her wishes were duly respected, though not without strong opposition from her rather older husband. And now, because of those wishes, she was lying silent in her bedroom covered by a white sheet, never having set eyes on her infant.

The midwife was still holding the child, a girl, still wet and sticky, bawling for its mother who would never comfort it. She turned from the deathbed and went out. The woman's husband started from his chair as he heard the bedroom door open, but his face fell when the midwife shook her head and wordlessly handed him the crying child.

He had to sit down – his wife was gone, and in her place was this angry little infant who he felt was almost a stranger, a bringer of unwelcome news. The realisation that he was going to have to raise a child on his own hit him hard, but for now, grief and pain left him alone. They would come later.

"What is her name?" asked the midwife, after a minute or so had passed. The man was still staring at the bundle he held, not making a sound. She suddenly remembered that this child was not the couple's first; she had also overseen the birth of this baby girl's brother. What had happened to him? And why was he not here, demanding to see his new sister?

Before the midwife could wonder any more, the man wiped his face with a sleeve and said, "She wanted the child to be named after her mother, if it was a girl."

"I will register her for you; what is her name?" the midwife prompted when the man did not continue, instead falling back to gazing dull-eyed at the baby.

A brief pause; "Sumire – Sumire Shouda."


	2. Middles

**Middles**

Sumire didn't like swimming. In fact, she hated it. At the present moment she was stuck in the middle of the pool on a floating piece of cardboard, or at least something that felt about as flimsy and useless as that. What was the point of this gigantic puddle of water anyway? Why anyone would want to drench themselves in cold water was beyond her. Sulking, she suddenly realised that she didn't know how to get back to the side of the pool without drowning or at least getting wet. Eurgh.

She gingerly dipped her feet in the water and winced at the very wetness of it. The other children either watched her with some trepidation from the other end of the pool or sat similarly scowling on floats. Most of them had been very fearsomely glared at when they had dared to approach her before and were thus giving her a wide berth. Sumire Shouda embarrassing herself did not have pleasant consequences for an observer.

Hmm, kicking her feet moved the float slightly. Maybe she could just do this until the edge … although it might take some time. If she wasn't out of the pool when everyone else had gone to lunch then she would be forced to admit she needed assistance. What were the other options? Shouting for the teacher supervising would just be humiliating, asking for the other children's help would be even more so. Her Alice wouldn't help at all here. Sitting on the float might bring her back to the edge, seeing as it had brought her out here in the first place, but the swimming session would end much too soon for that to work. She soon came to the conclusion that the only way to get out of this sticky situation was to get in the pool and attempt to doggy-paddle or push the float to the poolside. Huh, well.

Steeling herself, she screwed her eyes shut, held her breath and fell off the float. The water was even colder than she expected and at least a hundred times worse. Where had the surface got to? Her nose was burning; she accidentally opened her mouth to shout and choked on the disgusting taste of the pool water. Yes, the surface was there; she suddenly felt air on her face as she broke it, spluttering. Now, to grab onto the float and get over to the side. Easier said than done, really. After a few failed attempts, she decided that simply walking along the bottom was going to be faster.

The next week, the Infant Class A teacher announced that they were going swimming again … Sumire glowered so fiercely that she was allowed to stay behind.


	3. Ends

**Ends**

Sumire looked at it again. It could _not_ be true. And yet the evidence was staring her straight in the eyes; her mirror never lied. (Actually, it had, once, when a certain idiot had replaced it with an evil charmed mirror, but that really was not the point.) She looked closer, accidentally banged her nose into the mirror and immediately prayed that no-one was watching her. Even if no-one was in the room, you could never really be sure of who was or was not watching you with an Alice of some sort.

After rubbing her nose to disperse the pain and annoyance, she inspected her considerably long flowing green hair again. There it was – a split end. And there, another one. And wait, was that another?

"AAAARRRGGHH!" she screamed in exasperation. There was no end to them! She had no idea how they got there; she washed her hair with only the best hair products one could buy and no-one could say they took better care of their hair than Sumire. Perhaps it was to do with the fact that no-one else in the school had quite the same natural sea-green tinge to their hair, or the same strange mix of straightness at the back and curls at the fringe. A colour and curliness that rare could _not_ have split ends in it!

After smashing a few mugs and tearing up a couple of pillows (a job made easier by her Alice claws), Sumire sat down again. She looked again at her hair – no use, the horrible split ends were still there and still very real. And this obviously wasn't just a bad dream because those broken mugs had hurt quite a bit. Hmm.

There was only one thing to do. Changing into her cat-dog form, she ran as fast as she could to the Central Town hairdresser. With some luck the Infant Class supervisor would not notice she was gone for a good half-hour, which was hopefully plenty of time to carry out her plan.

When she came back, everyone was too scared of her to ask about her drastic change in hair length. The new, rather fashionable bobbed look stayed with her for the rest of her school life.


	4. Insides

_A/N: You know, some of this is taken from GA canon - can you work out when this drabble is set?  
This is called Insides because ... er ... it's set INSIDE Sumire's room. Uh, yeah. Totally._

**Insides**

Sumire woke up with a start and realised her cat ears and tail had come out again. This meant that something was not quite right in the world around her … She sniffed the air tentatively. Was that a _mouse_ inside her room? She unconsciously bared her sharp cat-like teeth as she got out of her bed and sniffed the air again for mouse-like scents. What was a mouse even _thinking_ of doing inside her lovely, two-star, vermin-free bedroom? And anyway, how did it even get in? There had better not be some sort of mouse mansion in her back wall. Eurgh, mice. What an annoying creature to have her get out of a warm, comfortable bed in the middle of the night.

The mouse shivered as he wandered around the unfamiliar room, lost. He had only come here because the scary metal broom-wielding thing that patrolled the corridors had chased him away from the cheese he was eating. And he had only willingly put himself in the middle of the corridor because his beloved Luca had asked him to … but that was beside the point. The point was that he was lost, confused and scared of the weird human-cat-dog-that-wanted-to-eat-him scent that was wafting around the room so strongly. And it was getting stronger which meant that the big scary human-cat-dog-monster was getting closer and he needed to hide and where oh where was the hole where he had come from and HELP!

Yep, there was definitely a mouse. Not only could she smell it, Sumire had just heard it give a frightened squeak and dive underneath her desk as she crept closer. Right, now she just had to get that much closer and pounce. Stupid mouse. It wasn't as if there was a secret mouse escape route under the desk or something. She walked on all fours towards her desk and leapt for the annoying pest.

HELP the monster was getting closer and there was nowhere to run inside this place where was the hole where was Luca eek! Squeaking nervously, the mouse ran in circles under the desk. The monster pounced, he felt teeth graze his back - he managed to twist out of them and land sprawled out on the floor and rather dazed. No time for thinking - just run! After crashing into the wall a few times, he found the hole; luck was on his side! The mouse sped out of the room and ran for his life.

Sumire sat back on her bed and rubbed her head. Ow. That stupid, idiotic, damn-he'd-better-get-caught-by-Takahashi irritating _thing_ had somehow managed to escape. She could've sworn she'd caught it; but _no,_ it had seemingly magically disappeared. Not only that, but it'd then reappeared on the other side of her desk and so led her into bumping her head on a wall with an audible "thunk". Besides, how had it got out? And more importantly, how had it got IN?

Too tired and annoyed to be looking for mouse holes, Sumire got back into bed. She made sure her Alice was turned off and wrote a mental note to tell Takahashi to have her walls checked and fixed. No doubt that brainless no-star girl was behind this. Hmph. She fell asleep still thinking of ways Mikan _could_ be behind this, the methods she could use to teach her a lesson, and 21 more ways in which she could squee at Natsume and Luca.

Some time later, while Luca was sneaking back to his own room (the word sneaking is used because he was trying to minimise the risk of anyone seeing him wearing Mikan's skirt - don't even ask), he was leapt upon by a hysterically panicky mouse who kept babbling about cat-dog-monsters and holes in the wall. Hmm.


	5. Outsides

_A/N: According to a Japanese friend, Kokoroyomi literally means "mind reader". I find it quite unlikely it's his real name. This chapter contains first-person narrative, and some Natsume/Mikan and Koko/Sumire._

**Outsides**

Everyone knows what I'm like on the outside. I've heard what all the girls, even those who follow me around and agree with my every word, say about me. I know they think I'm mean, loud, bitchy, malicious, self-centred, arrogant, egotistical, spiteful, fake … the list could go on. Maybe there's some truth in what they say. I don't care. When have I cared about what anyone thinks of me? And don't answer that, by the way. Anyway, as I was saying – what I do care about is that stupid people get what they deserve. What I care about is that the people I love get what _they_ deserve.

No-one's the same on the inside as they are on the outside. Take that Mikan Sakura, for example. When I first met her seven years ago, I thought she was just a stupid little girl who shammed herself into the Academy and had a loathing for Natsume. (Actually, she's still rather stupid sometimes. I guess some things never change.) God, I hated her. I don't mind her so much these days – I suppose I would have to count her as one of my better friends. Someone who's that irritatingly _nice_ just can't be disliked, really. In any case, I didn't hate her for very long; quite soon after she came, the Leo incident wiped away any past annoyances.

And her best friend, Hotaru Imai. I'd never seen her smile or show any sign that she was a caring human being until Mikan arrived. To see someone who I had put down as being an alien species with a malfunctioning empathy drive suddenly get up and _defend_ someone, to see that she did actually care for someone – that was weird.

Natsume was the tough cool guy who everyone looked up to. No surprise that I did. I probably annoyed him a bit more than most people, too. (He was too good-looking and too amazing and too wonderful and Special-Star-ed to _not _create a fanclub! I could list my 31 Points of His Awesomeness … then again, maybe not right now. Maybe next time.) But he's not all angry and dark and uncaring; these days, when he's with Mikan, they make an absurdly cute couple. Personally, I don't understand how he can stand her 24/7 – but that's love, I guess, or at least close enough for schoolgirls.

Luca … I remember the first time I saw his Alice. Hmm. That's probably enough to describe what he's like inside, tough guy or no on the outside.

Koko. (I can't bring myself to use his real name. "Kokoroyomi" has been his nickname for the past ten years or so, so it's a force of habit.) When he first came, he was … strange. No-one wanted to even be near him, let alone talk. For me, I didn't see why. Why did everyone care so much about their thoughts being read?

I remember being picked out to be his partner – people said I changed him into the always-smiling, happy guy he is now, but I don't know. All I remember doing is shouting at him to be less of a cold-hearted weirdo. Huh, maybe that worked. I still shout at him now; he's the only person I can rail at without being hated in return. He doesn't mind, because he knows what I'm really thinking, who my anger is really directed at and what my real feeling are. To have someone who can always understand your feelings, who can always see who you are through all the lies and masks that people put on you; I find that important. I guess that's love – or at least close enough for school girls. Huh.

No-one's the same on the inside as they are on the outside. Why should I be any different?


	6. Hours

_A/N: In canon, Sumire plays the violin at Otonashi's leaving celebrations._

**Hours**

It was 4:30pm.

"Let me out! It's half-past! I want to go!" shrieked the young girl being held captive in the room, banging on the door with both fists.

"Huh. It's only 4:26 – you've got four minutes to go," replied the boy standing outside, looking at his watch.

"Let me out! Let me out! Let me OUT!" continued the screams.

"Four more minutes, or you're staying in until supper," warned the boy, absent-mindedly brushing a piece of blue-green hair out of his eyes. He would have felt pity for her if her cries had not been so very piercing (he couldn't believe such a loud, irritating noise could even be produced by a little girl, let alone continuously for an hour) and if she hadn't been so … annoying.

The thought of having to be locked inside a room for another two hours with nothing but a stupid piece of wood that deserved to be burnt by the cool new guy with his Fire Alice was too much for the poor girl. "Let me out RIGHT NOW or I'll smash this thing!"

"Then you'll have to pay for it, idiot. You won't be able to eat for the rest of your life because of that debt, stupid," the boy said distractedly (he was concentrating on a video game that someone had sneaked in). "Just carry on practising and you can go in three minutes, ok?"

A few seconds of angry silence followed, and then came the sound of someone furiously playing the violin.

She was actually quite good, mused the boy (still wondering how to get Mario over this big whomping blue stone); she would probably much better than he had been. Apparently it was some sort of family tradition (the word "family" being blood ties and nothing more – to the boy, the father was just a long-distant ghost of the past, and to the girl, someone to hate, and as for their mother, well, she was long gone) for the Shouda's to learn some sort of instrument for at least five years. The boy had given up the violin as soon as his compulsory five years of lessons (_very_ compulsory - his father had even written a note to the Academy asking that they supervise his daily practise hour) had finished, but maybe his sister would continue for a bit. Heh heh.

"THAT'S FIVE MINUTES I WANT TO GO!" The boy winced at the sudden noise. He got up and unlocked the door. The girl rushed out in a blur of green hair, claws and fury. "I hate you I hate you I hate you!"

Seeing as they had been through this same routine every day for the past two months, he could help but be a little bored. Sumire had soon better accept that she was going to be doing this for the next five years.


	7. Days

_A/N: Does anyone actually read any of this? Feel free to show some sign of appreciation by reviewing, by the way. (Also I couldn't think of anything good at all for this prompt, "Days", but never mind.)_

**Days (Hiding Behind Mikan)**

Everyone notices when Mikan starts hanging out with Sumire a lot more – or rather, Sumire starts virtually being stuck to Mikan (and Hotaru, because you just can't be with Mikan and not be with Hotaru). It's weird, because Sumire is practically ignoring her other circle of friends, the ones who she likes to squee with about things like "#7. Luca has such a great hair colour!". They're all a bit lost really, without their President to guide them through the worlds of fangirling. In fact, it's been _days_ since she last talked to Natsume and Luca, in fact. They're actually missing her constant chatter and attention, strangely enough, although Natsume doesn't admit it even to Luca. For the last seven years or so, Sumire has always just been _there_, talking, hugging, squealing, laughing manically at their "jokes". It's quite a change.

But anyway, back to Mikan. Sumire is always by her side (or at least somewhere very close) – Yuu, Iincho, he can't say anything to Mikan (be it words of adoration or helpfulness or general niceties) without being shot down immediately by the rather more vicious green-haired girl standing next to her. Numerous theories abound on why Sumire is sticking to Mikan. There is rather less speculation on why Mikan is sticking to Sumire, because after all, she is so … _nice,_ she would attach herself onto everyone if she could. The other reason is that Sumire is much more of the gossip girl than Mikan, so of course everyone wants to make it even with the rumours.

Some of the theories are, "I think it's because she ate something Alice-poisoned or that biscuit that Anna and Nonoko gave her last time we went to Central Town" and "Perhaps she's under a magic curse that means she would explode if Mikan isn't there". The most creative one to date that Sumire has heard being whispered not-so-secretly (the culprits being later punished for spreading rumours about her, no doubt) is "Maybe she's actually a princess who is abandoned by her father who was the King because he had to sell her to the enemy kingdom and she was actually illegitimate and her mother was actually a peasant or a slave and Mikan was her mother's best friend's child and she only just found out so she wants to talk to Mikan about it and Mikan is paying too much attention to Hotaru to talk to her so EEK!", the "EEK!" being when Sumire pulled their ears from behind.

She has to admit that the princess bit was quite flattering; not so much the illegitimacy and abandonment, though.

The thing is, no-one really knows, because of the coincidental fact that Mikan's Alice prevents anyone from mind-reading, hearing, x-ray-vision-ing or otherwise finding out any information from either of their hearts and heads. The class will probably have to remain in suspense for the rest of their lives; or at least until they forget about it.

No-one suspects that it is _because_ of Mikan's Alice that Sumire is constantly with her. Koko can't read her mind when Mikan's close by, and the fact that she has a crush on him is one of the few things Sumire doesn't want him to know right now.


	8. Weeks

_A/N: I really do love the poem she ended up writing. Especially the last verse._

**Poetry week (prompt: weeks)**

In the summer holidays at the Alice Academy, there are weeks of freedom with no lessons. Most of the children laze around and play on the expansive fields in the sun, while others laze around in bed all day long. The hard-working types do their homework or practise their Alice, like Hotaru, who uses this time as a way of making more money. Mikan, meanwhile, is running around Central Town dragging Yuu, the fox-eyed boy and the mind reader with her. Tsubasa is distractedly playing with a tree's shadow on one of the fields and wondering if Misaki was joking when she said she would never, ever not even if the world was going to end tomorrow, go out with him. Or maybe she was just covering up … it's very hard to tell. Natsume and Luca are just sitting indoors looking identically dark, angsty, brooding - just like a normal schoolday.

Sumire, meanwhile, is sitting under a tree in a field (but not the same one that Tsubasa is worrying under) and attempting to write a love poem to Natsume and Luca. The key word for her here is "attempting", and indeed the main problem right now is actually writing something that won't make the reader want to commit suicide over the death of good Japanese literature. The other problem, which will come later, is how to give it to Natsume and Luca and convince them they're BOTH her One True Love(s) (which is a phrase Sumire is planning to put into the poem). The other other problem is that she wants to write in a foreign language to show off her intellect, but it's proving harder than she first thought.

After a morning of looking through various English dictionaries and ripping some of them up in frustration, here's what she's written so far.

"A Very Sweet Love Poem underlined many times and with little hearts floating around it

"I think you're really cool  
And I really want to drool  
When I see you  
And I … marks of rubbing out"

She wasn't quite sure about the drool bit. I mean, it was hardly civilised or anything, and anyway, it wasn't as if it was actually true or anything (if she believed the dictionary in its definition of "Drool: to dribble saliva"). What else rhymed with 'cool', anyway? After searching through a handy "Guide To Rhyming", she found there were fool, mule, rule, yule, pool, stool, tool … but none of those seemed to fit. Hmm. How about,

"I think you're really cool  
And you are never a fool"

Yay! That worked! Now to continue the poem. To rhyme with you … huh, that was easy.

"When I see you  
I know that you're my One True

Love."

Big yay! If you disregarded the fact that 'Love' had to go on a different line. Oh well; that was poetic and artistic freedom. Obviously. Next verse!

The narrator is rather tired of going through Sumire's jumbled and mostly confused and angry thoughts about her poem, so we will skip to a point much further on in time – say, a week or two ahead.

"To Natsume or Luca depending on who gets to read it first (don't worry I'll cross the other person's name out later)

-heartheartheart- A Very Sweet Love Poem -heartheartheart-

I think you're really cool  
And you're never a fool  
When I see you  
I know that you're my One True  
(Love)

I really like your Alice  
You deserve a really nice palace  
With an ice rink  
I think

If you're not Natsume but you're Luca  
Then look here  
I think your bunny is really cute  
And you are also beaut  
(-iful and that also applies to Natsume as well so if you're Natsume you CAN look at that last line!)

Your hair is gorgeous  
So, really, you're jus'  
Above  
Everyone else who I don't love

I don't know what else to say  
So have a good day  
And please  
Don't sneeze  
(Because that means you have a cold  
Or maybe you're old  
(Which you aren't  
So I shan't  
Say anymore  
(That's all!)))

Signed, SS"

After looking at the end result, Sumire had to admit that perhaps writing English poetry wasn't her strong point. She sighed. Ah well, she supposed she could show it to the rest of the Natsume and Luca Fanclub even if she didn't actually give it to them. It was a bit of an embarrassing effort … Although, she was still very pleased with herself for thinking up the _gorgeous/you're jus'_ rhyme. Maybe she could write another poem using that as some sort of inspiration …


	9. Months

**Months**

Sumire first used her Alice when she was eight months old. At that time, all it gave her was a heightened sense of smell - the whiskers and such would develop later – so her father did not notice any strangeness. She herself was too young to remember any of it apart from overwhelming fright. That was caused by the new smells and tastes that had flooded into her mind, but she had forgotten that part.

Sumire used her Alice again two months later. Her father was attempting to feed her and she was refusing quite dramatically, as attested by the splattered walls and ceiling. _No, no, no!_ she raged inwardly, being as yet unable to talk properly and communicate in any better way. _It smells too bad, I can't I won't I don't want to eat it! _After managing to tip out the contents of the baby food jar onto the floor, her father finally gave up. It was not until afterwards when he cleaned up the mess that he realised the baby food was many months out of date. Somehow Sumire had known.

He didn't notice any other strange incidents for quite some time. Then again, he had hired a nanny to look after the child while he was away at work, so he never really got much time with Sumire anyway these days. Then, when she was three, and on the way to "Big Amusement Park No. 4" (obviously the creators of this place had run out of creativity when naming it), her father noticed she had whiskers. He picked her up and looked more closely. Yep, definitely whiskers … when he pulled one, she yelped and said "Daddy that hurts!" in a very loud and piercing tone. He put her down quickly.

He wasn't as shocked as one would have expected; after all, he had been through (almost) the same kind of events with his other child. So this child had an Alice as well, and then she would be taken from him and he would go through all the grief of losing his family. Again. He did not want to think about the other times (but of course they came anyway, unbidden and unwanted – first his parents, then his son, then his wife, now Sumire), especially not now, when his little precious girl was looking up at him like that, impatiently wondering why they were not going into the theme park. He could move house every week, change their name ten times over, never go to the same place twice, hide his precious last remainder of family forever and ever amen, but he knew – they would come. They always came. At least he had tried, he had tried to protect his son, to shield him from the government, but it was all for nothing. But he would try harder this time. Maybe, in a glimmer of hope, Sumire would be able to stay with him, away from the Alice Academy (oh what pain in those very words) – at any rate, he could always hope.

But for now, he told the toddler to put away her whiskers and gently told her that it wasn't allowed, and walked with her hand in hand into the park.


	10. Years

_A/N: After looking up all the GA birthdays, ages and when they all came to Gakuen Alice, I got so confused that I just gave up and wrote whatever. Some of these events might happen at slightly odd times, although I tried to be as canon as possible. Yay kind of long chapter!_****

Years

0. When Sumire was born, her mother died, her father cried and her brother only found out about all this family drama two weeks later.

1. On her first birthday, she accidentally threw up all over her father who was attempting to sing her a happy birthday. She hadn't been feeling very well for the whole day, and for someone as young as she was, she didn't realise why a birthday should be such a special day.

2. For her second birthday she had a nanny to look after her as well as her father. She didn't throw up this time or scream at the sight of a cake or anything, and as far as she knew, it was a rather uneventful birthday.

3. When Sumire was three her Alice developed somewhat and gave her whiskers as well as enhanced olfactory sensations. That was when people such as her father, as well as other less friendly Alice Academy spies started to notice that she indeed had an Alice. On her birthday however, such worries hadn't come up yet, and she had a fun party at her house with all her friends from playschool.

4. Her fourth birthday party was a rather quieter affair, but this time there was a special surprise – her brother managed to be sent home for a week so that he could celebrate it with her. They had moved house quite a few times that year (Sumire didn't really know why) and so she had had to leave behind all her friends from her old playschool. Her father had told her not to tell her brother (a tall sort of scary but not really boy who she did not really know) about how she could smell things and feel them with whiskers, but when her brother told her all about the Alice Academy and its utter awesomeness, she couldn't resist. She wanted to go to such a place, filled with children like her that she could talk to about her powers without feeling like it wasn't allowed or like it was stupid. She was bored of being at home all day, not even allowed to run outside like a dog and smell things. So she told her brother about her suspected Alice, and he told his friends about his cute little sister "who's got an Alice as well so she's going to be here soon", and word got around – Sumire was located and brought to the Academy as soon as possible.

5. Sumire's fifth birthday was her first at Alice Academy, which was indeed every bit as amazing as she had thought and then some. She was one of the youngest children there, so she often got comments and privileges for being "so cute!" and "aww, look at her Alice!".

6. Not much happened on her sixth birthday.

7. When Sumire turned seven her brother took her to Central Town where he bought her a box of Howalon for her present. By this time she was practically the queen bee of Elementary Class A and had cut her hair into what was to be the distinctive Sumire bob.

8. A new boy came to Alice Academy when Sumire was eight. This boy deserves mention in that she was chosen to be his partner (poor boy). It was unfortunate that the rest of the class refused to go near him on account of his Alice – who wanted their secrets to be read? This meant Sumire had choose between being a good girl and watching over the new boy (and hopefully be promoted to double star) or staying with her friends and so leave him to make his own way in the class. Sumire didn't particularly care about anyone reading her mind (she said most of her thoughts anyway) and he was so _little _... she chose option three. That was, shout at the new boy until he becomes what the class want to make friends with. Soon, the mind reader (Kokoroyomi as they said in Japanese, obviously) realised that being a smiley idiot was the way to make friends. He gave Sumire a hug and a cute flowerpot for her next birthday.

9. When Sumire was nine a boy called Luca came to the Academy with a pet bunny. She took an immediate liking to the rather scared looking boy (she wasn't quite sure about the bunny – sometimes she wanted to eat it or something and other times she loved its cuteness) and stuck to him, showing him all around the school. She loved the fact that he was in her Somatics class, that he had a vaguely European look, that he was so quiet and nice to everyone and much more. In fact, there was so much more that she made a "List Of Luca's Greatness In 24 Points" and formed a fanclub. Later on in life she had the realisation that she was probably attracted to him at least partly because of his Alice (Sumire did have a dog's sense of smell, after all).

Sometime in the same year another boy called Natsume arrived at Alice Academy. Strangely enough, it seemed that he already knew Luca from before … in any case, Sumire quickly added him into the "List Of People Who We Are Fans Of (Total: Two)" for the Fanclub. After a few weeks of observing and commenting on Natsume's tasteful brooding silence and general coldness, it was a close call between whether Sumire liked Natsume or Luca better. She'd have to say Luca though – he had 24 Points Of Greatness while Natsume only had 21.

Sumire didn't really think about putting Koko (as he was now often called, his real name possibly long forgotten) into the List Of People at all. He wasn't the kind of boy that a girl could "eeee!" about, to be honest – more like an annoying best friend that you couldn't help loving (in a purely friendly way of course).

Also that year, her father sent her the traditional family violin to learn on. She didn't think of her father really, these days – five years at the Academy had worn away their bonds.

10. Sumire burnt down her first oven on her tenth birthday. This marked the beginning of a lifetime of terrible cooking.

11. Hotaru Imai and Mikan Sakura came to Alice Academy when Sumire was 11. Normally, she wouldn't have cared about two more new people, but when Mikan started to pick fights with her beloved Natsume … that was IT. No way was she going to get away from the wrath of the Fanclub after not calling Natsume a molester and a pervert, but also insulting the whole of the Alice population.

Fortunately for both of them, they soon got over this hate at first sight and became at least reasonable friends.

12. A lot of things have happened in this year, most of them to do with Mikan and Natsume. Alice Academy has changed quite a bit since she came and Sumire knows that Mikan and her mother are somehow involved in this as well as Narumi-sensei. It's all a bit weird and confusing, really. Still, at least Natsume and Luca have cheered up a lot.

13. To mark her entry into the world of teenagehood, Sumire's best friends banded together, went out with her into Central Town and bought the most amazing cake.

14. Sumire remembers Mikan and Natsume starting up their relationship just before her fourteenth birthday. A few other people also started experimenting with going out this year; the ones affecting people close to her being Koko and Anna, one of those geeky Technicals (at least they're the same age, huh), and Luca and herself. Luca finally managed to get over his childhood (not that 14 isn't still childhood, but there's not really any other way to say it) love for Mikan.

Sumire discovered that her Alice had developed again sometime that year when she grew cat ears as well as cat whiskers. Oh well. At least it gave her improved hearing abilities.

15. Sumire's relationship with Luca didn't last that long. She decided she preferred him as either a friend or someone to make a Fanclub for. Not long after her fifteenth birthday, Sumire gave Luca their last kiss and declared that she was done with boyfriends.

16. Koko surprised her making her fall in some sort of love or crush with him when she was sixteen. Privately she wondered how he did it. Still, he was two years younger than her, even if he was her best friend and had broken up with Anna and gone out and broken up with Nonoko …

17. Koko confessed his own feelings for her on Sumire's seventeenth birthday. It was probably the best birthday present of all her seventeen years, now that she thinks about it. Later that day, he told her that he did it because he read her heart when she was opening his present, and Sumire promptly screamed her head off at him. He quickly assures her that he did mean it, though.

In the evening, when she tried to sniff out where her nail varnish bottles are, she realised that she gets a tail and sort-of-claws now when she uses her Alice. It's kind of weird, but cool at the same time, but it means that it's now all too embarrassing for anyone else to know about her Alice.

Koko found out anyway, like he normally does.

18. The gang managed to sneak in some alcohol for Sumire's eighteenth birthday party. She woke up the next morning with a raging headache, a sore throat and a feeling that she's been eating cat food. (Actually, that wouldn't have been too unlikely. She's done it before.) The first thing she saw was Koko grinning and then Mikan asking why she didn't tell them before about how cool her cat-dog Alice had become. Sumire groaned and covered her ears.

So passes Sumire's childhood.


	11. Red

_A/N: Heh ... heh ... heh. Red probably refers to Natsume's eye colour._

**Red**

(Property of The Natsume And Luca Fanclub, Tier 3. Authorised personnel of the third level ONLY are permitted to edit, change, add on to or otherwise alter this document. Authorised personnel of the first level and above ONLY are permitted to look at, read, understand or otherwise comprehend this document.)

**The Twenty-One Points of Natsume's Greatness, Version 2.4  
**

#1. He has the Alice of Fire. As we all know, fire is one of the most important substances in the world and vital for many things, including cooking and fuel use. Not only can Natsume control fire, he can also create explosions! :D Also his flames are inextinguishable and not normal – this is more proof of his superb talent.

#2. His best friend is Luca, another member of The List of People Who We Are Fans of. This is another very good point. For the details of Luca's greatness (which are not written here), please read The Twenty-Four Points of Luca's Greatness.

#3. He seems angsty, dark and brooding. The best guys are always dark and brooding, thus, Natsume is the best.

#4. But on the inside, he is actually nice. A bad boy with a kind heart is even better! XDD

#5. He has red eyes. Red of course suits his already awesome Alice, and is a very unusual eye colour too. Natsume is the only person that we know who has red eyes, so he is very special indeed. Red is the contrasting colour of green, the President's eye colour – somehow this is cool.

#6. His hair is very cool and anime-like! _(squee) _Anime and manga hair is so cool! It sort of but not quite covers his eyes (long hair is so cool too!) and it's kind of spiky.

#7. He is not too tall …

#8. … or too short. He is the perfect height!

#9. Once, he helped the President (that is, Sumire) with her homework. Not only does this show his intelligence, it shows his kind and generous personality.

#10. Which leads onto #10, he is very clever. Although he does not often show it in class (he is such a bad boy! lol), we think he is the most intellectually gifted person in Elementary Division.

#11. He is a Special Star. There are only a few people in the entire school who have this rank! Because of this he is known for being a genius.

#12. He is very good at using his Alice – it's even rumoured it's of the unlimited shape! (However this might also mean that he'll die sooner, so we must try and prevent him from using his Alice too much for his own safety.) In any case, this also contributes to why he is a Special Star. It is rumoured that he is some sort of spy or secret agent for Alice Academy, but these are totally unfounded...

#13. He is indeed very handsome. It is impossible to describe his good looks in words, so we shall not bother. Besides, if you've been accepted into the Fanclub you don't need to be reminded of them.

#14. His voice is deep and low and wonderful.

#15. His hands, feet, rest of body etc are perfect ... what more can I say?

#16. Even his name sounds nice. Natsume ... is such a good name for him. It's hard to explain why, really. And the surname, Hyuga, is so cool too. No-one else has a name that's even similar to his.

#17. He often wears a black cat mask, which simultaneously shows that he is a rebellious bad boy (that's a good thing, by the way) and makes him look kind of cute at the same time.

#18. He is one of the popular boys that all the rest of the class look up to. No-one would be in a fanclub for a loser now, would they?

#19. He has some sort of affection to Mikan, and they make an extremely cute couple when they are together. Sort of. If only Mikan wasn't so loud ...

#20. He's not _that_ much younger than the President (only a year!), and about the same age as most of us in the Fanclub. It would be very annoying if he wasn't in our class, or if he was too young and immature.

#21. He is just Natsume altogether and complete! No-one (except Luca) can compare, really - even if there isn't a proper reason or sentence we can say, we know he is amazing and awesome.

**Written by the Fanclub, led by the President Sumire.**


	12. Orange

_A/N: Do me a favour and read my other new fics, please? Especially _How To Write A NatsuMikan Fanfic _just ... because. You know, it's actually much LONGER than the whole other How To Write leaflet! It just happens to be only one chapter, not three. And it took longer to write, as well. Oh, and if you like NaruMisaki, check out the other new fic.  
_

_Anyway, her_e_'s the next Sumire drabble._

**Orange**

Orange is the colour of autumn. Her father's birthday is in autumn, Sumire remembers. The exact day eludes her, but she thinks it was in October sometime - or was it late September? She doesn't want to think about it; the thought of him together with the anger of abandonment and the guilt of losing his memories is too much for her right now.

Orange is the colour of the leaves when they fall. This is to do with autumn as well, but as well as her father Sumire remembers herself playing in the dead leaves with a girl from play-school, but again the memory of that girl's name and face and hair escapes her grasp. Now she sits on the benches or the desks inside, talking to Natsume and Luca or her circle of friends, and watches disdainfully as the little kids play in the piles of leaves, and she thinks it's better that way.

Orange is the colour of oranges and clementines and mandarins and tangerines and all the rest of them. Why can't she remember which order they go in? Sumire bites her lip, and breaks a pencil in annoyance. She was revising this just last night. This, she thinks, is why she's so bad at cooking. No-one should ever have to learn the correct way to juice a lime or whether a watermelon is bigger than a pumpkin (and that, her mind can't stop thinking, is also orange).

Orange is the colour of cheap cat food. She grimaces unconsciously at the thought. Last time she stayed in Central Town too late (and with too many stupid people, a little angry voice adds), she ended up back in her dorm with no memory of the event except a faint one of cat food and using her Alice too much. She puked into the toilet almost as soon as she woke up.

Orange is the colour of orange juice, which, according to The Book Of Highschool Cooking (although Sumire is sure that no normal high school teaches cooking like this or even at all), should be an extremely easy thing to make. Somehow hers always ends up breaking the juicer by mistake. Hmm. But apart from that, orange juice reminds Sumire of her triple-star breakfast, which reminds her of her star promotion a few weeks ago, which is always a nice thought.

Orange is the colour of Mikan's hair, more or less. Actually it's more of a light brown, but that's not the point. Besides, Mikan's name is somewhat like an orange (if that stupid cooking textbook is to be believed, anyway), as is her Alice Stone, so there you go. Sumire isn't quite sure what to think of Mikan, or what Mikan thinks of her. Sumire privately thinks that she is one of the best at guessing and generally knowing what A thinks of B and what C thinks about the relationship between A and B and if D is opposed to this or maybe he likes B as well (she supposes that Koko is a hundred times better, but that's just unfair to compare to him), but Mikan's thoughts are not so easily understood. She is too nice. Nice is that even if she hates someone, she'll be even more nice to them to try and make it up. If you're nice to everyone, how is there any difference between any of them? At least if you're openly nasty, everyone knows exactly how you feel and why.

Sumire broods on this for a bit. She's not going to stop being That Bitch Sumire just yet.

(Unless it comes to cooking, when she needs all the help she can get.)


	13. Yellow

_A/N: I know people don't like it when authors beg too much for reviews, but can I do it just this once? I know some people, at least, are reading this (at least that's what my Author's Stats tell me), and that's been good enough for me so far - but when you're a fanfic writer and you've got only single figure reviews for weeks of hard work, and EVEN IF those weeks of hard work are dedicated to a fic that you KNOW is not going to be popular and therefore takes some courage to keep on at it, it gets a bit ... disheartening and in the realms of am-I-not-good-at-this?.  
(It's going to be even more disheartening if no-one reviews NOW, isn't it? Sigh.)_

_Sorry for the long note. And by the way, if you couldn't tell that easily, this is set in the times when Sumire and Luca were going out for a short period of time, sometime in the Middle School Division. And is probably one of the more pointless drabbles, though it does kind of hint why they broke up._

**Yellow**

_When he has a golden halo, how can you blame him?_

Luca's hair is yellow-blond and brighter in the sun when they are lying down in the field and talking about everything and nothing. Sumire is petting his rabbit, who never fails to be cute and is even more so when she's half-asleep, and gradually falling asleep in the warm grass. Luca is cute and Sumire has chased after him for ten years if you round it up, but she can't help but feel stifled when she talks to him alone. With Natsume, the rest of his "gang" and sometimes Mikan and the others, it was different, but Sumire can't quite work out why.

Luca stops talking, and Sumire doesn't want to disturb the moment, so she keeps her mouth closed. She smiles and kisses him, and then closes her eyes because the idea of sleeping right now in the open field is very attractive right now. Bliss, lack of noise and all the nice outside smells of the world, all on a warm summer's day. It's hard to get in this Academy.

Her mind, however, has other ideas, and she can't stop running crazy ideas through her head. Her life is perfect, but why is there that feeling of discontent sitting in her stomach? Maybe ... maybe it's because Luca is actually very quiet on his own, even more so than Sumire had previously thought. It's hard to hear him if anyone talks over him, and Sumire does that a lot. So then she has to try _not_ to talk, which is hard, because she has so many things she is bursting to say.

Is that it? Perhaps, but then again she _likes_ listening to Luca talk and being quiet and sleepy for once. Doesn't she?

But then again, even through quiet and sleepy is nice, Sumire still doesn't like being on Mute mode and not doing her own talking. Conversations are two-way streets and that's usually fine with her, but with Luca it's as if the street is too narrow for both of them to go down at the same time. It's as if she has to wait infuriatingly while the other lane drives past the blockage, and Sumire loves the other driver too much to rudely drive into their way. And when she drives past first, she has to deliberately make concessions to let Luca in.

Sumire doesn't like concessions. When she goes in for something, she knows exactly what she wants and no-one's meant to stop her. But there's always an exception to the rule, isn't there? Like a Special Star in the Elementary Division ... only now they're all in the Middle School, does that count? Where triple stars are two a penny, and look what her maths result got her this time, a star almost like Natsume ...

Her mind is wandering too much, Sumire realises, and with a start she wakes up from her semi-slumber. Luca is angelic in his sleep, especially with his bunny curled up next to him, and she feels a pang of emotion. Of course she could never resent him for something so stupid as talking too quietly, what was she thinking? She sighs, uses his back as a pillow and is almost immediately swallowed in sleep. Hopefully one of the girls over by the pond will wake them if it gets too late.

(Actually, she muses, that yellow of the setting sun on Luca's hair is exactly the yellow of that disgusting cake that Luca and Natsume had forced her to bake. Their excuse was that "you need to improve to get your grades up!" with an added "practice makes perfect, you know!" from that Mikan. Now that was something she could resent them for.)


	14. Green

_Iris: Aw, thanks for that - but why didn't you sign in or otherwise leave an email address so that I can reply?! :( So here is your reply, immortalised in fic. Yay, double figures! And yeah, I do write for myself, but knowing that other people enjoy my writing too makes me even happier. (smiley face)_

_I have no idea what the point of this chapter is._

**GREEN (a continuation of Ends)**

It seems like having an Alice affects other things - one such being hair colour, as well as eye colour. No normal person has green hair, especially not the kind of dark shiny sea-green that's almost iridescent in the sun that Sumire has, or the exact shade of deep green eyes to match. No non-Alice has curls that fall from the temples only, leaving the rest of the hair perfectly straight. Sumire was justly proud of these facts, as well as her hair condition and cut in general. Today, however, she was feeling a little apprehensive about entering the classroom on account of the fact that she'd just had a drastic haircut.

"Hey, Sumire-chan ... wasn't your hair longer yesterday?" asked Wakako, her brow furrowing in confusion as Sumire came into the classroom to sit next to her.

Sumire rolled her eyes in a way that clearly said, "Are you stupid? Of course it was longer!" but Wakako didn't take the hint. "Wasn't it? I'm sure you looked different the last time I saw you!" she persisted. As Sumire hair was approximately less than a quarter of the length it had been yesterday, Sumire thought she had a right to call Wakako stupid. As best friends go, she was one of the slowest that Sumire had encountered.

"Yes, of course it was longer! How can you not be SURE? It was about this long -" and here she gestured at a place around her stomach, "- last night, of course it's changed!" Sumire glared at Wakako for making her shout so early in the morning. She had read somewhere that it was bad for the throat as well as your overall happiness.

"Oh. Sorry, Sumire," said Wakako humbly. "So ... why did you cut it then?"

"Because I felt like it," Sumire savagely replied. No way was she going to admit it was because she was growing split ends. "I went to the Central Town hairdressers last night."

"On your _own_? Isn't it a long way? And it does look really nice now," added Wakako. "But didn't the duty teacher catch you?"

"Yes on my own, yes it is a long way but I used my Alice, yes I think it looks nice too (but thanks anyway), and no she didn't," said Sumire, thinking how much trouble she would get into if the teacher had caught her. She got out her pencil case and started sharpening pencils so that Wakako would see that she didn't want to talk to her right now. Unfortunately, as with most things, Wakako was a bit slow to pick up on the hint.

"Do you think I should get my hair cut?" asked Wakako.

"No I don't. Do you HAVE to ask me?"

"Um ... no? When do you think I should cut it then? Isn't it getting a bit long?"

"No is the correct answer, I have no idea but maybe have a trim in a month or so, and no it is fine." Now will you shut up?

"Ok then. Have you seen Hana today?"

"No."

"Is she still sick then?"

"Probably. Does it really matter? She's been sick for the last two weeks!" Ok, no more shouting. But it was so tempting ...

"Ok. Shall we go shopping in Central Town this weekend?"

Arrgghheurgh. "Wakako, it's Monday. Ask me on Friday. Or even when it IS actually the weekend. Actually, don't ask me at all." She glowered at Wakako.

"Sorry, Sumire. Er ... do you -" She was interrupted by Sumire noisily getting out of her chair and walking out of the classroom. "Where are you going?"

"To the toilet." In actual fact, she wasn't, but anything to get away for a few minutes ...

When she came back to get her bag, she was immediately greeted with "Did you know there's a new girl coming in today? I heard the teachers talking about it last night. I think her name's Monoke or something?"

"Oh." Actually, that WAS quite interesting. Carry on, Wakako. "Any idea what her Alice is then?"

"Er ... I dunno. But Misaki-sensei said she was in his ability class, so does that mean she's a Technical then?"

"Yeah." Did that even NEED confirmation? "Can you shut up now?" Would that be too rude for a friendly request?

"Ok Sumire." Wakako turned to writing her own name in levitating pencil sharpenings. Exciting.

Finally, silence. Please please let someone else come in so I can talk to them and not get annoyed, thought Sumire.

And indeed people did come in. In fact, the rest of the class trooped in. They were followed by Misaki-sensei who looked to be a in a bad mood and had obviously just chased the rest of the class in from the corridor. Behind him was a nervous-looking blue-haired girl, presumably the new pupil, who stood at the front wondering what to do. The other pupils who had just come in started to either scream, shout "Oh my God!" or gasp at the sight of Sumire's new haircut. (The more normal ones merely complimented it or asked who had cut it for her.) They were interrupted, however, by Misaki-sensei telling them to be quiet and sit down so he could get this registration over and done with so that he could get back to his own class which he wasn't in now because That Idiot Naru had overslept again and couldn't be bothered to attend his own class's registration which is even more infuriating because we're having a new girl today. The new girl in question looked even more nervous at this pronouncement.

"So anyway this is Nonoko Ogasawara, be nice to her and show her around. I have no idea who her partner will be so EVERYONE has to help her get used to this school." And with that he stormed out of the classroom, leaving the teaching assistant to deal with it.

"Do you think you'll like her?" Wakako asked Sumire, after the silence evaporated into noisy talking and paper aeroplane fights.

Sumire, following Misaki-sensei's example, also stormed out of the classroom.


	15. Blue

_A/N: Takes place when they're around 13-14. No, I'm not homophobic, even if Luca might be a little.  
_

**Blue**

Lying on the field, looking at the clear blue sky (they seem to do this a lot nowadays; there really isn't much to do in the long summer _except _laze around outside, or laugh at the boys playing Alice-football), some students are participating in a game of Truth Or Dare, introduced to Alice Academy by some random English transfer student in the year above.

XXX

Hotaru was working on some new invention up in her workshop, Natsume was probably on a very secret and very dangerous mission somewhere in the Arctic as usual, but no-one wanted to think about that, so Luca and Mikan ended up wandering in the fields. There they half-ran-into and almost tripped over Sumire and Koko who appeared to be having a one-way conversation with Sumire shouting "Shut UP, you idiot!" every so often. (That "Shut UP!" was the reason Mikan didn't actually run _right _into them and trip over.)

"Hey! What're you two doing, running around and stepping on people like that?" said Sumire, glaring at Mikan and stroking Luca's rabbit.

"Well... Hotaru's locked herself in her room, so I had to walk around by myself," Mikan said sadly. "But then I found Luca on the field so I'm ok now!"

"Where's Natsume?" asked Sumire eagerly looking round. Mikan and Luca sat down next to her.

"I think he's doing something for Persona again ... he told us not to worry though, I hope he'll be ok ..." said Luca. Even so, he still looked and sounded rather worried.

Hmm. What to do? Koko, with another of his ingenious suggestions, suggested that they try out that new game which all the Middle School are laughing so hard about. That way, Luca and Mikan's minds would be taken off Natsume and everyone could laugh about and do stupid things (because _everyone_ needs to do stupid things every so often). And so that was how it started.

XXX

A few rounds passed of rather bland questions like, "Er ... um ... I can't think of anything! Uh ... who do you think is the most annoying person in our class?" to which Mikan replied, "I don't find anyone annoying! And it's really nasty to say things like that, so even if I did find someone annoying, I wouldn't say it." (See, that's why it was so bland and boring. Even when Koko tried to make her reveal more with the help of his Mind-reading Alice, he realised too late that her Nullification put an end to all attempts.) Still, things got more exciting later - Koko had to run all over the football pitch screaming, Mikan had to tell the story of why Natsume used to call her polka-dots (that came with some more screaming), Luca had to use Sumire's hairclips and hairbands for the rest of the day, and as revenge for that, Sumire had to wear her Alice cat whiskers for the rest of the day. Luca's rabbit made an "eek!" sound as her Alice was used, and fled back to Luca's arms.

"Just because I have a Cat-dog Alice doesn't mean I'm going to eat you!" said Sumire grumpily. The rabbit wasn't convinced, though.

"So, whose turn is it? Oh yeah, Koko." Koko chose truth. Running around the field was kind of tiring. With the grumpiest of evil smiles, she asked if he liked anyone in _that_ way. "And you have to answer. No exceptions. Hmph."

So after a lot of interested persuasion tactics, Koko finally said, "Er ... mumblemummble," which Sumire decided did NOT count as a proper answer. After a second round of slightly more violent persuasion tactics, he said, "Er ... Anna."

Wow. That was weird. "I never knew you liked geeky people like her," said Sumire.

"Hey! Anna isn't geeky! Just because she's a Technical doesn't mean she's not as good as you!" Mikan said. "She's really sweet, I can see why you like her!"

"Whatever," said Sumire. Anna, Nonoko and Hotaru WERE geeky, even if Mikan didn't agree. "Anyway it's your turn. Koko, ask her a question!"

"Sumire! I haven't chosen truth or dare yet! But I'll choose truth anyway. And I think Anna is a really good choice!"

Sumire didn't know why Mikan bothered to say such useless things sometimes.

"Who do YOU like then?" asked Koko, evidently hoping to get some dignity back. "And just because I can't read your mind doesn't mean you can't answer!"

It took a lot of violent persuasion tactics to get Mikan say anything other than, "I don't fancy anyone!" Instead she said, "Well, I used to sort of like someone, but now I don't! Get off me!"

"Ok then, tell us who you used to like, seeing as you haven't actually told us anything yet," said Sumire. It turned out that Mikan used to like Natsume. "Oh," said Sumire. "I thought you meant someone else. Everyone knew that you liked _him_."

Luca sighed and said, "Yeah, everyone knew that."

"Luca do you have a crush on anyone?" said Mikan very cheerfully.

"Can I choose dare?" Luca said.

Actually, everyone except Mikan knew who Luca liked, so Sumire and Koko didn't especially mind if Luca _did_ choose "dare", but it would be something big if he actually said it to Mikan herself. In fact, it would probably be a bit too big. Koko, reading Luca's thoughts, found such a desperate cry for help that he took pity on him and said, "Actually, I don't think Luca should say, because he promised never to tell anyone."

Sumire wondered how that made any sense seeing as Luca was meant to be saying his own crush, not someone else's, and therefore shouldn't have made any promises not to tell, but she played along. "Yeah, he did. And it's really, really important, and he can't say anything because ... then they would never forgive him. Ever," she said, mentally groaning at how nonsensical it all sounded.

Mikan said, "Oh," was silent for a few seconds, then gasped very loudly. "Luca! Do you like ... Natsume?" she asked with a look of wide-eyed innocent interest.

"No!" said Luca, looking slightly horrified. He wasn't sure if this was worse than just admitting he liked Mikan. Besides, he thought he was kind of sort of going off her (that was probably a good thing, seeing as he knew he would probably never go out with her), so maybe it wouldn't really be that embarrassing to say.

Mikan deflated a little, Koko laughed and Sumire rolled her eyes - how thick could Mikan get?

"Oh. I thought I was onto something ... did you used to like him?" said Mikan.

"No!" said Luca again, looking even more horrified. "I don't like boys! I like girls! I'm normal!"

"Hmm ... so it's a girl ..." Mikan said.

Before she could think of anything else, Luca quickly said, "Sumire what about you?" and Mikan's thoughts were drowned in Sumire's outrage.

"How can you ask me that?! I didn't even choose to do a truth!"

"Well, you did dare last time, so you have to do truth this time," said Koko. That wasn't actually a rule. He had just made it up because he was interested in Sumire's answer. (He hadn't been allowed to simply read Sumire's mind to find out private things like that on pain of torture, death and extreme public humiliation. Having witnessed some other poor girl's Extreme Public Humiliation at the beginning of this year, he didn't want to take any chances.)

"That isn't a rule! You just made that up, idiot!" shouted Sumire. Still, three against one is a clear winner, and before long the other three had her trapped and had used violent persuasion tactics against her.

"Ok, fine! Just get off my stomach!" To ease off her stressiness, she hissed at Luca's rabbit and made it tremble and hide behind Luca. "I wouldn't mind going out with Natsume or Luca," she said.

Luca looked a bit uneasy, and Mikan and Koko said, "We know you have a Fanclub about them, but who do you really have a proper crush on?"

Actually the Fanclub was on the road to disbanding, but that wasn't the point. "So what? I can still like Luca if I want! I mean, I can still like Luca ... and Natsume ... if I want!"

"You like ... Luca?" said Mikan, wearing her wide-eyed expression of innocent interest. Luca himself looked even more uneasy. This is a bit weird, he thought.

"If you keep on making a bit fuss about it I really will eat his rabbit," said Sumire. Ugh. How annoying. She _knew_ she should never have agreed to this game.


	16. Purple

_Disclaimer: Although I don't own Gakuen Alice or an Alice-made dress, I do own Mari and Hana (who don't really do much anyway)._

_A/N: Wow, I am on a roll today! Not only did I finish up the first chapter of **"A Few Mushy Bits"** and the second chapter of** "Fifteen Ways"** (ok, I admit **"Fifteen Ways"** had been sitting almost-finished in my documents for a few weeks (since before **"Bits and Pieces"** in fact), and I'd already written most of** "A Few Mushy Bits"** a few days ago), I've also written another Sumire drabble on a prompt I'd had writer's block about for the past month! Er ... could anyone understand that massively confusing sentence?_

**Purple**

Sumire stands in front of the body-length mirror and inspects her new prom dress for any specks of dust, hair or stray pieces of thread. She's been saving up her monthly allowance for half the year for this dress, and now having bought it over the weekend at Central Town she wants to make sure it looks perfect. (Otherwise she'd have to return it and demand a refund, or at least a fair exchange, and that just takes too much bother.)

But it looks fine, so far as Sumire can see. It's a dress of some deep purple Alice-made fabric that feels as light as air - it falls down in folds and layers to her ankles, and is held in place by a thin ribbon around her waist, tied as tight as she could get it without feeling strangled. Tonight is the end of festival Last Dance, and because Sumire and her class are in the sixth form she's allowed to wear a dress of her own choice.

She brushes an invisble hair off and picks up the necklace on her bedside table. While she is engaged in putting it on, someone knocks on the door, and a second later, Mikan, Wakako and Mari have wandered into her room.

"Sumire! You look really pretty," says Mikan happily. Sumire glances at what Mikan is wearing - the same pink dress that she wore last year, and the necklace that Sumire herself had bought her for Christmas - and wonders why Mikan doesn't make more of an effort. After all, it _is_ one of the most important nights of the year, if not the whole time in school; for this class, it will literally be their Last Dance, at least in school terms.

"You look cute," says Sumire. "Why don't you do something else with your hair? It'll get tangled if you just leave it down like that," she continues critically.

"Well, you know, it takes so much time doing fancy things like that ... anyway, I don't really mind if it gets messy. I just want to enjoy the dance," says Mikan. Wakako and Mari look incredulous, and then Wakako says, "I'll do your hair for you if you want, Mikan."

Mikan says she really doesn't mind, gets out a half-finished letter and starts writing, and they turn back to Sumire. "Do you need any help?" Mari says.

"No, I can do it by myself." Sumire can do most things by herself. She brushes the straight part of her medium-length hair back and ties it up with a plain hairband, then pins it back with a matching long purple hairclip. The curly parts she leaves to hang down as usual.

Looking round, she asks, "Are you guys ready?" and then looks properly at what Mari and Wakako are wearing. "Actually ... Mari do you want to borrow my dangly red earrings? I think they would suit that dress very well. And Wakako your hair is coming out." She quickly ties Wakako's hair up again (with a few small changes because that hairband was really not facing the right way) and Mari looks very happy at being allowed to borrow the very expensive and pretty earrings.

Ah well. As long as they don't embarrass her, Sumire thinks.

"Sumire, are you ready? I came in here to tell you that Natsume says that Koko wants to meet you outside the pavilion next to the flower stall, and Hotaru wants you to pay her for that Swan Scooter service," Mikan says, looking up from the letter she was writing.

Sumire puts on her gloves and says, yes, she is ready, and no she is not going to pay that greedy Hotaru for something stupid like that and that's Hotaru's problem not hers, and they all walk out of the room.

XXX

At the Dance, Natsume gives Mikan some flowers and Koko says proudly, "I didn't get you flowers because I know you don't like them." Sumire says, "Oh, great, well done," with sarcasm, but thinks, "Oh that's nice of him to remember." Wakako, Mari, Hana, etc, the rest of her 'gang' go off to find their own partners or dance amongst themselves.

It's in the Last Dance proper, the one with the traditional Alice Academy music and everything, that Koko says, "You look really nice."

Sumire says, "Thanks. Don't I always look really nice?" and Koko has to agree.

"Don't be so sad, you're not leaving the Academy just yet," says Koko after a pause. Sumire can't help feeling nostalgic and a little mournful that she won't be here for next year's Last Dance. Koko continues, "But it's not like we're not going to see each other again. And you can always just come back and visit for next year's Last Dance. You know we're going to dance here again."

"Shut up and stop reading my thoughts! It's like an invasion of privacy!" says Sumire, but inside she feels a bit fuzzy and Koko can hear that as well.

"By the way, Hotaru's thinking of inventing some sort of high-tech weird punishment for you if you don't pay her," says Koko after another pause.


	17. Brown

_(Dis)claimer: I don't own Gakuen Alice or the characters therein, but I do own Mari, Hana and Kokoroyomi's real name. _

**Brown**

"Settle down everyone, I need to take your register!" called Serina-sensei. Elementary Class A reluctantly got off the desks and sat down in their allocated chairs, and some of them stared with interest at the little boy standing next to Serina's desk. Probably another new student, thought Sumire. That meant she was most likely going to be his partner, since she had the most obvious empty seat next to her. (It was empty for the simple reason that she was known as the fiercest and most unfriendly girl in the Elementary Division.)

Serina finished her register, and stood up to write the new boy's name on the board. "This is Kouichi Yamamato, your new classmate. I'll leave him to tell you his Alice himself - " she looked around the room for empty seats, and continued, " - and he'll have to sit in the seat next to Sumire. Oh, and his partner will also be Sumire, because she hasn't got a partner yet."

Just as she predicted. Sumire groaned inwardly and shifted her chair slightly so that she didn't _quite _take up the whole desk, then put on her most forbidding face.

"Sumire, I expect you to be welcoming and helpful towards Kouchi," Serina said, knowing what Sumire was like towards new pupils. "As his partner, you need to show him around the Academy and introduce him to this class. Now, it's time for your first lesson, so sit quietly until Jinno-sensei comes in." As she left, the class burst into excited chatter.

Sumire turned to the boy now sitting next to her. Light brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a slightly miserable and angry expression on his face. "What's your Alice then?" she said. Better try to be nice to him - she _was_ going to be stuck with him for the rest of the year, anyway. Maybe she'd even get a Double Star for making such an effort.

"Mind reading," Kouichi said, somehow managing to sound both miserable and angry, just like his expression.

Oh. That was quite a cool Alice, actually. "Oh," she said out loud. "That's really cool. My name's Sumire Shouda, like Serina-sensei said." Maybe she should introduce him to Mari and Hana, who were currently behind them and both staring at the new boy as if they had never seen a guy before.

"You don't have to speak out loud, I can still hear you ... What's your Alice?" the boy said.

"Yes, but I like speaking out loud!" said Sumire heatedly. This guy clearly had issues. "It's what normal people do, you know! Anyway, I was going to say that this is Hana and this is Mari, but seeing as you already knew that I don't have to say so anymore!" Hopefully after that he would have forgotten that he'd asked about her Alice, the thought of which Sumire was trying hard to block out from her conscious mind.

Kouchi looked a little abashed at her outburst. "Er ... sorry," he said, in an annoyingly miserably tone. Seriously, what right did he have to sound so depressed, anyway?

"Mari, Hana, say hello to Kouchi," Sumire said to the girls at the desk behind her. They obediently did so, but then looked a bit scared and freaked out when he started to say things like, "I'm six and I have two sisters and I lived in New York for a few years then I moved back to Tokyo," etc, which were presumably answers to questions that they were still forming in their brains.

"You're meant to make him feel welcome and not look at him as if he's a freak," said Sumire after seeing the new boy's face become even more miserable. Well, if he was going to be her partner the least she could do was help him, in her fashion. "And look, it's not all their problem, if you want to stop people looking at you like that, then you shouldn't answer questions in other people's minds before they've said it and by the way your sad scary face is so annoying!"

Luckily for Kouichi, Jinno came in and ordered everyone to sit down again before Sumire could launch into her proper ranting complaint.

"Sumire ... it's really strange and I feel weird talking to him," Mari whispered a few minutes later, while the rest of the class were engrossed in multiplication tables. "What if he hears all my secrets and things?"

"Don't think about your secrets then, stupid. And there's not exactly much point whispering about him when he can hear your thoughts anyway," Sumire replied moodily, glancing at the boy in question. What was Mari complaining for anyway? _She _hadn't been picked to be his partner, so it really didn't matter what she thought of the new boy. Even if he could hear it anyway. He could probably hear these thoughts too, Sumire suddenly realised. Couldn't he?

"Yes I can," he said.

Great. Stupid mind reading idiot. And you deserved to be called that so don't look angry with me, she added as an afterthought.


	18. Black

_A/N: I'm not exactly good at getting into the minds of nine year olds, sorry._

**Black**

"Hey guys, have you seen the new boys?" squealed Wakako, positively bouncing into Mari's bedroom. "They are so cute! Don't you think so?"

"Eh, new people?" said Sumire, who was sitting on the desk fiddling with the zip of her pencil-case. "Why're you so excited about boring stuff like that?"

"I saw them in the corridor when we were doing maths - didn't you two?" Wakako said, choosing to ignore Sumire's last comment.

"Oh I get it, you mean that blond one with the rabbit and the creepy black-haired guy with him, right?" said Mari, who was lying on her bed pretending to be asleep. "Uh ... so how do you know they're in our class?"

"I asked Koko, the mind reader kid who's Sumire's partner; he said he heard Misaki-sensei thinking that they were going to join our class tomorrow," replied Wakako, looking very proud of herself. "And the black hair guy isn't creepy, I think he looks really cool!"

"Trying to get on Shouda's good side by sucking up to her boyfriend?" Hana said. The other three looked round in surprise - she had somehow entered Mari's room completely unnoticed by them.

"Shut up, idiot," said Sumire, scowling at her. That girl really needed to get it into her head that Sumire was the boss around here. "That Koko's too annoying to ever be _anyone's_ boyfriend. Wakako, did he hear what their Alices were?"

"No ... but he did say that the black-haired one had a really powerful Alice and was going to get a Special Star," said Wakako. "I'm not sure about the other one, but he was holding this really really cute bunny so I thought maybe he has some kind of Animal Alice!"

Wow. A Special Star - was that even possible? Even Hana had nothing bad to say about it, for once. Mari sat up amd looked slightly more awake. "A _Special Star_? Are you sure?" said Sumire, after a while.

"If Koko heard right, yes I'm totally sure isn't it exciting and SO cool? And don't you think that having an Animal kind of Alice would be so cool as well? I wonder what the other one has!" Wakako said, returning to her fangirl squeal-mode.

"Huh, I think we should go and see if these new boys are really that awesome before we agree with Wakako," muttered Hana.

Sumire nodded her agreement. "But if it's true he has a Special Star, the creepy guy without the bunny must have some really amazing Alice ... unless Wakako's got it wrong again, which is probably more likely than something like _that_."

"Oh, come on you two! Why don't you believe me? Mari, what do you think?"

"Eh ... the reason we don't trust you is because last time we did, you led us to the sewage place instead of the Howalon stall. I'm going to go with what Sumire-san and Hana said ..." Mari said sleepily.

Wakako was not pleased. "Fine, we'll go and meet them tomorrow then," she said. "But I bet you guys are going to be so amazed by them that you'll be begging me to set up a fanclub."

"Hey ... Wakako almost stood up for herself there!" said Hana. Sumire glared at her for saying that when it should have been herself.


	19. White

_A/N: Yes, it's terribly short. Sorry. I'm also sorry for the use of a complete and utter OC._

**White**

It's snowing, pale flakes falling lazily from the sky. It snowed last night as well, by the looks of it - a layer of white icing covers the grass, the trees, the frozen cleaning robots of the Technicals' classroom block. The rest of the school is either pressed up against a window praying that they'll be allowed outside due to a early lesson finish, or already out there playing with snowballs and burying people in snow. (Of course, there are always exceptions - Natsume is being antisocial as usual and is melting every snowball that anyone dares to throw at him.)

"Come on, let's go outside!" Koko says, pulling Sumire's arm.

She glares at him and says, "No! I want to stay indoors!" and he hears, "_because I hate the snow; it reminds me of Yuki," _and Koko doesn't press her any further. Sumire once told him about Yuki, the white cat she had before coming to the Academy, but he never quite understood why it meant so much to her. _But_ s_eriously, how much could she even remember about life before the Academy - she came here when she was four, didn't she? _Koko stands there for a moment, then runs out chasing the fox-eyed boy and accidentally trips over into the wet mush.

Perhaps if his Alice had reached further into Sumire's mind, he would have seen an image of a white cat frozen in white snow, the lonely death of a child's only friend.

(Moving so often, escaping from the Alice officials as soon as her brother finished his week-long stay with his family, Sumire had lost any playgroup friends she might have once had; her father bought her a cat as white and as fluffy as the snow last Christmas to keep her company. She had not realised then that it was not "normal" to talk to and be able to understand the meowings of pet cats - but still, she was only three or so, and a very talkative child even at that age. Yuki was the best friend, the one who listened to of all her screaming and moanings of daddy never taking her out to the park. Someone (to Sumire, one supposes, cats were a kind of people) who knew the right things to say when Sumire cried at night or wondered about her mysterious brother - the best friend who never stuck to her like day-old glue but was always there when she needed her, curled up at the foot of her bed. Even when Sumire had been forcibly brought to the Academy, Yuki came with her to the annoyance of the chauffeur driving them. But all good things come to an end, and Yuki's end came a few years later in the form of a rushing car and a tomb of ice.)

Why have best friends when you only hurt them? Why make friends, be open and nice to them, get close to them, why trust someone if it means vulnerability and heartbreak? She didn't think those thoughts so clearly, but maybe her dreams came somewhat close.


	20. Colourless

_A/N: I just got the new volume 4 in English by Tokyopop! W00t! It contains Narumi with his hair done up like a girl, Natsume's get-your-cockroach-from-the-mirror RPG challenge, and Sumire talking about her future. Also, in this "official" translation, Sumire's nickname is Curly and Kokoroyomi doesn't have a name (well duh)._

**Colourless**

_"Everyone! What do you want to do in the future?"_

_"Huh? The future? Well, to make the most of my Alice, I've decided to become a government investigator or a police officer."_

Sumire had always been a fan of the Sherlock Holmes series of books, and was even more so after she discovered a set of Conan Doyle books in the original English. So she set about slowly translating, reading and enjoying them in The Alice Academy Foreign Languages Library.

"Curly! I was looking for you everywhere! What're you doing here?" said Mikan, bursting into the room.

Sumire groaned, took a deep breath to calm herself down, and said, "I'm going to throttle you if you call me that again and what does it look like I'm doing dumbass?"

"Are you reading?"

"... That was a rhetorical question."

"I didn't know you liked books! Wow, you're really good at English if you can read thick books like that. So what's it about?"

Arrrrrgghhhh. Why Mikan? Just, _why _her? "It's like a detective story. Murder mysteries, you know. That kind of stuff. You wouldn't be interested."

Mikan squinted at the words, trying to understand the unfamiliar text. She had never been very good at English. She sat down in a chair and was quiet for a few seconds.

"OH! I get it! You want to be a detective when you're older, don't you?"

Sumire closed the book and threw it on the desk. She had been planning on spending the rest of the afternoon in here - maybe not. "Something like that."

"I still don't know what I want to be ..."

"Maybe a professional annoyance would be an ideal job."

Mikan's brow briefly furrowed in confusion, before she decided that whatever Sumire had just said was probably not very important. "Well, I want to get married to Natsume and then, um, I dunno."

"It's a bit early to be thinking about stuff like that. Besides, you know _I_ wanted to do that (even if I have got Koko now)," said Sumire, but Mikan wasn't listening.

"You and Koko would make such a cool investigator team!" she squealed.

"Huh?"

"Well, you could find evidence and murder weapons and track serial killers across the country and match blood stains and use those funny see-through magnifying glasses not that you need to because of your Alice and all of that, and then Koko could read everyone's mind and find out if they were lying and what really happened and who the criminal was and then you could do all the evil arresting!"

"That is actually really cool," said Sumire, grudgingly, while Mikan paused to draw breath. Why hadn't she thought of that? She and Koko, working as a team doing what they were both good at - that _was_ kind of nice.

"And you could be called the CatGirlMindReadingCouple!" Mikan finished.

"No, because that would give away our trade secret and the fact that we're Alices."

"Oh right."

Before Mikan could think of any more ridiculous names, Sumire picked up 'His Last Bow' and got up, meaning to go off to her room to read.

"Curly! Can I tell Koko please?"

Sumire reminded herself to strangle Mikan when she next saw her. "Go ahead," she said, and walked out.


	21. Friends

_A/N: Wow. The word count for this is 666. Don't you love me for updating so soon?_

**Friends**

Sumire has a few people that she thinks of as best friends, some more that are just dubiously friends, and a whole lot more that she thinks of as idiots.

Hana, Mari and Wakako are the group of best friends that she has known almost since she first came to Alice Academy. Well, Hana came a few years after she did, and Sumire has no idea when Mari came, but that's not really the point. They're the friends that Sumire says things like, "You know, I think Koko is actually kinda cute," to, and the kind of friends that she sets up Fanclubs with and writes silly lists of Hotness with. (Which reminds her, where did Luca's list go?) And even if Wakako is annoying, and Mari is just boring, and Hana is permanently depressed, and Sumire just _has_ to shout at them in real anger every now and then, she can't imagine life without them.

And then there are the group of "friends" that hang around on the outskirts of the disbanded Fanclub. Sumire knows all their names and their exact relationships, thoughts and crushes with anyone and everyone, but she doeesn't exactly _talk_ to them. Mari says that they're actually really nice, but to be honest, Sumire doesn't really care what they're like. As long as they don't bother her, it's all fine. If they DO bother her, well, they asked for it.

Mikan Sakura is probably a friend. Sumire doesn't know why she cares about that idiot so much, but she does. She cares whether Mikan has to stay in a hospital and she cares about how her relationship with Natsume and/or Luca is progressing. But Mikan isn't the person Sumire likes to talk to (except in irritation) - she's just sweet, and hyper, and innocent, and very very nice, like some kind of typical cute anime character.

And on that note, Natsume and Luca are almost probably friends too. She doesn't see them as often as she did before; it's probably to do with the non-existance of the Fanclub. She's known them for absolutely ages too, so it makes sense to call them friends (like those drifters on the outskirts of her in-group), but she's not really certain. Sure, Natsume does care deep down inside, but how is anyone meant to know if he doesn't show it? At least I make it obvious how much I care (in both good and bad ways), Sumire thinks. And Luca has always been a bit weird to her after she broke up with him that time a couple of years ago. Sheesh, get over it already.

But one thing she does know is that Hotaru is not really her friend. That girl just weirds her out. As do the forever-inseparable couple of Anna and Nonoko.

Koko is her boyfriend, which is like a best friend, but with kissing and stuff. Koko is annoying, and says the most irritating things, but somehow she doesn't mind it that much. And Koko (thanks to his Alice) actually _gets_ what Sumire wants to say and what she does say, and he doesn't get offended or make Sumire explain in slow baby terms what she means. There's no stepping around carefully, or the painful annoyance of thinking, "Is this offensive in some stupid, roundabout way that I didn't even mean?" before everything she says. And maybe he's an idiot, but he's still kinda cute. Even when telling scary stories about crossdressing murderers with a gigantic grin on his face.

Sometimes Sumire just wants to run away with Koko to a faraway land and leave everyone else behind. She'd still email them occasionally, of course. And maybe meet up with Hana and Mari and Wakako whenever they fly over. Obviously. (But that's not running away then, interjects Koko, and Sumire rolls her eyes.)


	22. Enemies

A/N: I'm really, really sorry for putting you through yet ANOTHER short, annoying, introspective account of Sumire's personality. As opposed to an actual story, you know? Sorrryyyy...

**Enemies**

_even if I don't say it 'cos I say too much about other things I still love you it doesn't matter when you can hear my thoughts anyway  
_

Being popular doesn't mean being liked - it means being loud, noticeable and pretty. Sumire is loud and noticeable, and she's pretty in a fierce and arrogant way, so she is the unofficial leader of the little group of 'popular girls' and their hanger-ons. It's not that she means to be this way, but it just comes naturally to her and she's well suited for the job.

As said before, merely being the centre of attention when it comes to gossip, boyfriends and influence doesn't make one much loved by those who aren't included in the circle of friends. Some people aspiring to rise to the top of the classroom pyramid might be put off by this fact, but Sumire isn't. She's been at the top for as long as she has been at this school. To her, there are no hard decisions about friendships and popularity; why should there be?

Niceness is overrated, she thinks. Sumire isn't nice to new people, not because she doesn't like them, but because she just doesn't care about them. No pretend politeness or purposeful nastiness; she just treats people according to whatever she honestly feels about them - love or hate or irritation - and she thinks the world would be easier if everyone did that. Besides, she already has friends anyway, and she doesn't feel the need to bother to make more. If people don't like her, that's their problem - at least until they actually _do_ something about their hatred, and then it inevitably ends up being completely still their problem, but this time with Sumire laughing at them. She knows that they dislike her, and can probably list the cross-referenced reasons why, but she doesn't particularly care about it. I can think of many people who would have liked to see her go down, but so far none have succeeded - except for Mikan, and that was completely different anyway.

But even if she's not exactly nice to people, even her own friends, she does care about them. Even if she bullies Mikan or Wakako constantly to get what she wants, it's not the real, emotionally-hurting bullying that she does to her enemies - and she would be the first person to stand up for Mikan or Wakako respectively if anyone else tries to play that game. Anyone who dares to insult Natsume or Luca would be met by the full wrath of Sumire, just as Natsume and Luca were constantly being met by the her full fangirling love.

Still, the fact is that popularity doesn't mean anything apart from just that (and the loud, noticeable and pretty part). Alice Academy isn't the typical American high school that you see in all those movies; you don't have to be pretentious, dumb and blonde to get into the top. No-one else seems to notice through the loud and cruel exterior that she's actually quite good at academics, at her violin, at seeing through people, or that she knows just what she wants for her future and what responsibility comes with being an Alice.

Not everyone can be a mind reader.


	23. Lovers

_A/N: I don't want to write smutty stuff about Sumire and friends. Also, I have tons of work to do, so I'm stressing out by writing this._

**Lovers**

Mikan has a boyfriend. Not just any boyfriend, but one Natsume Hyuuga - the main object of the Fanclub's admiration. And this calls for an emergency meeting.

"So how did they get together?" says Wakako. She's sitting on a chair in Sumire's room with the rest of the Fanclub around her.

"Apparently he's liked her as soon as she came into the school and so he took her underwear off," Sumire says. "Koko told me," she adds, by way of explanation when the others look at her questioningly.

"But ... she's not even that pretty! And she's hardly intelligent, although she _is_ incredibly loud and irritating," says Hana, lying on the bed and looking quite murderous.

"Yeah," Mari says, who is doodling absentmindedly on a piece of paper. "Didn't she know that Natsume was Fanclub property?"

Sumire rolls her eyes, and says, "She's still very nice to us, and they do say 'opposites attract'. And it's not like she's _ugly_."

"But how can Natsume stand her? I mean, I can barely get through a few minutes of talking to her, and you know what Natsume's like," says Hana.

"Yeah, but we know what you're like. You can hardly get through a few minutes of anyone," says Sumire. She isn't really sure what she thinks of these new developments - Mikan and Natsume? Natsume and Mikan? From Mikan's very first day, when Natsume showed so much interest in her and her polka-dotted panties, and even more so when those two were picked out by Naru to be partners, Sumire had always suspected _something_. Even if she wasn't quite sure what that something was.

Hana interrupts her thoughts with, "Natsume gets annoyed with everyone after a few seconds - except Luca. And now Mikan. What's so special about her anyway?"

"Crappy Alice ... and just a Single Star, too," Mari says. She touches the paper that she's been drawing on, and a shoal of cartoon fish swarm out of it and swim around her fingers.

"Maybe Natsume just likes those kind of people," says Wakako. "You know, impossibly nice and spunky."

"Guess that's where you missed out, Hana - on the impossibly nice part," says Sumire. She herself doesn't exactly _mind_ the fact that those two are going out, but she can't quite work out why. She had thought that she would mind a lot, being the President of The Fanclub and everything, but somehow she just ... doesn't really care very much about it.

"Shut up," Hana says grumpily. She twirls a lock of orange hair around her finger for a while before saying, "I just didn't think he would go for someone like _her_."

"Just 'cos you're jealous ..." Mari says, looking sideways at Hana to see her reaction.

"Aren't any of you guys? Come on, this is Natsume! The guy that we've all been crazy about for the last, what, five years!"

"Isn't it a bit strange, being in a Fanclub for someone who's already taken?" Wakako says, voicing a thought that had been floating around the whole dorm.

"Hmm," says Mari. "So what, we're disbanding or something?" A few of her animated fish stop swimming and look at Sumire, the President, with a shocked expression.

"Huh?" says Sumire, who wasn't really listening - or talking either, which was very unusual. She had come to the conclusion that she thought that Natsume was incredibly hot (and had thought so ever since he came to Alice Academy), but she didn't properly _fancy_ him, because she liked Luca more in that way. Not Natsume. So maybe that was why she wasn't very jealous - not like Hana was, anyway. Although Sumire was rather jealous that Mikan, the girl who had been oblivious to even the idea of going out until a few months ago, had a boyfriend and yet she herself didn't.

"Mari said, are we disbanding?" Wakako says helpfully.

Sumire thinks for a while, and then says, "You're right, there isn't much point ...

"And it's not like it's the same kind of Fanclub that we started out with when we first got together with it - and Sumire, why are you being so quiet today?" continues Mari, when Sumire trails off into thought.

Everyone else nods, and Sumire snaps, "I was _thinking_, OK? Is that so hard for you to grasp?"

There's a pause, after which Wakako says, "We're still friends, right?"

Hana gives her a withering look. "Well, _duh_. We're just not called 'The Fanclub' any more."

To tell the truth, Sumire feels that this final ending to the Fanclub has been coming on for some time. Mari is right - the Fanclub today just doesn't have the same hyperactive fangirlish atmosphere that it had when they were all ten years old.

"So ... what are we going to be called then?" Wakako asks.

"Nothing," growls Hana, obviously getting just a little annoyed with Wakako.

"You know, apparently Koko heard Kimiko thinking about us as 'those bitchy popular plastic girls' ..."


	24. Family

_A/N: Word count: about 700. Koko's been at Gakuen Alice for a week or so. Anyone want to suggest a challenge for me? *grins*  
Crimson Memories: I promise I'll get onto your beta-ing thingy! It's just, well, this chapter here was sitting in my revise-and-post box for AGES, and yeah ... I'll do it as soon as possible, sorry sorry sorry! :(_

**Family**

1. Mother. She's dead. Sumire knows, because her brother told her. Sumire doesn't remember her at all, so therefore she must have died before she was born ... which doesn't make any sense. Well, it doesn''t really matter, because she can't exactly miss someone who she never knew. And in any case, because she's at Alice Academy there's really no point in having parents at all.

2. Father. He was the one who abadoned her and sent her away to live at Alice Academy. He seemed so sad, when Sumire and her brother went to visit him for the one-week holiday last year and the years before that, but Sumire has little pity for him. She cried for him every night when she first came to the Academy, but now she's just angry. _You abandoned me_, she privately thinks and she won't let him explain himself in his letters and in his words. He has a new wife now, the letter she's currently holding says, but Sumire somehow can't bring herself to care much about it.

3. Brother. Sumire loves her brother. He's proud of her too and likes to show off her popularity to his friends. OK, he has a weird obsession with Hotaru, and he's kinda _weird_ in general, but he's still cool. He's in the Technical Class and just graduated into Middle School, so Sumire doesn't get to see him very often. Unless he's invading the Elementary Division to see some of the cuter girls or something stupid like that.

4. Cat. Sumire doesn't like to think or talk about her cat, who's now buried in the ground in a secret spot near the Somatic classrooms.

XXX

"So how about you?" Sumire finishes. She puts the letter that was in her hand in her pocket and looks expectantly at Koko.

"Uh ..." Kouichi, or Koko as he was now usually known by, starts. He's still a bit overwhelmed by the intensity of Sumire's thoughts ... "Uh, I have a younger brother called Hideki and two older sisters called Saeko and Sakimi. They're twins."

He continues on for a bit in this vein, interrupted every now and again by Sumire saying, "Smile!" and thinking, "At least he's getting more talkative now."

"... and so my grandad sometimes comes over for Hideki's birthday, but we don't see him that often," Koko says, finishing his family speech.

"Huh," Sumire says. "Do you like your family?"

"Yeah," says Koko as if it was obvious - which it is, isn't it? "It's really silly how we can only go back once a year; I really want to see my parents again. But my sisters are annoying."

"Yeah, well, if you get the Best Student award you can have an extra week's holiday," Sumire tells him. "I bet that Otonashi's going to get it though."

They sit in silence for a bit. Koko listens to Sumire wonder what her mother looked like and if she had an Alice, until she snaps, "Stop reading my mind and talk about something if you're bored!"

"OK, um, what Alice does your brother have?"

"He can understand how things work by looking at them. Or something like that, I dunno exactly. Does your brother or your sisters or your parents have Alices? My dad doesn't."

"No, I think I'm the only one with an Alice where I come from," says Koko miserably, but still with a nice happy smile.

Hmm, this is actually really weird, Sumire thinks. "You know, this whole 'smiling all the time' thing could get even freakier than the 'scowling all the time' thing," she says out loud.

"It makes me feel happy ..." Koko says, shrugging. He's privately very grateful to Sumire for suggesting the 'smiling all the time' idea.

"It also makes you look like an idiot. Even though that's probably true."

Koko just grins.


	25. Strangers

_A/N: Teachers are somehow to do with strangers, aren't they? Oh well ... to the reviewer who requested this, here you go. Maybe it's not Sumire-ish enough, seeing as it's just a description of the various teachers in the Academy rather than about her herself._

_Sorry I haven't updated this in absolutely ages. I was at a party last night and so have a rather annoying hangover right now (as well as a vomitty mess in the toilet to clean up ... wow, this reminds me of the first part of A Day In The Life. Wow. I totally have foresight and everything.), so maybe this chapter isn't particularly good. Ah well._

**Strangers**

-- **Narumi-sensei** is weird, and I mean weird. Well, I don't call him Narumi-sensei very much because Natsume and the boys have gotten me used to calling him Naru or some really stupid name like Naru-chan-sensei, but that's not the point. He doesn't really teach us very much, even though he was our homeroom teacher last year and is still my Alice Type moderator, so we get the substitute a lot instead. Hmm ... that's a good point though, why DOESN'T he teach us? I wonder what he does with his spare time. He likes Mikan a lot for some reason - something to do with her mom, apparently - and his Alice freaks me out, but he seems nice enough. Even though he doesn't teach us. Oh, and his dress sense and his general ... Narumi-ness freak me out too. Maybe he designs his weird clothes in his masses of spare time ...

-- The **substitute teacher guy **is completely useless, but it's fun annoying him. Hahahaha. He cries SO easily.

He also teaches Home Ecomonics ...

Eh, I hate cooking, so I hate his lessons ... what's the point in learning to cook, anyway? Especially when you can just order takeouts or go to a Central Town restaurant (where the Food Alices like Anna can do all the cooking-related things), or just get Anna or someone who _can_ cook to do it for you. There is no point in learning the correct way to strain beans or the six differences between noodles and spaghetti or how to cut an onion properly or carve it into a flower. I bet I could get moved up to a Triple Star rank if it were not for these stupid "FAIL" marks that I always get for my Home Ecom. test papers.

-- **Jin-jin **is kinda cool, I guess ... apparently, all the evil-teacher-stuff was all a ruse to get close to the Elementary Principal. He still seems quite evil to me, though. One of his more useful times was when he made Mikan a no-star - that time, our plan worked PERFECTLY. Lucky he's so predictable in class, although it does make his lessons one of the most boring in the school. I suppose I don't exactly listen much to what he's saying anyway because passing notes or talking to Mochu and Koko is much more fun, so I don't really care that much about how good a maths teacher he is. I just appreciate how easy he makes the whole idea of getting idiots in trouble.

-- **Misaki-sensei **is universally loved by all the girls in his Technical class (except Hotaru obviously), and I can sort of see why, even after the rumour I heard about him and Naru doing stuff together. You know, he has a Fanclub as well. But it's nowhere near as popular or exciting as my Natsume and Luca one. I don't think he's ever smiled or laughed in front of us, although he does get angry very easily. It's a bit strange, really - but he seems to have lightened up quite a bit since last year which I suppose is a good thing, although I have yet to see him laugh. Well, I like Biology classes and the greenhouse in general.

--** Yamada-sensei **is probably one of the nicest teachers in this school, as well as one of the best, even if she does talk rather quietly and so makes it hard for us to hear her ... Anyway, she is still a very good teacher, and so I actually try to concentrate in English lessons. I remember Hana saying something about how she moved to Japan to marry a Mr Yamada who then died, and that's why she's so, well, unemotional all the time. Hana's mum knows Yamada-sensei from when they went to school together in England, so I guess that's a trusted enough source.

-- **Makihara-sensei **looks a lot like Misaki-sensei, so I couldn't tell them apart for AGES when I first came. I don't really see the point in Social Studies - does anyone? It's a rather pointless thing to learn; I already do History and Geography anyway, and I know how to be social. Huh.

-- **That creepy person **who Natsume hates and teaches the Dangerous Abilities ... he's just creepy.

-- **Noda-sensei **I don't see around very often, probably because of his unstable Alice and the fact that he does the Special Class moderation, not the Somatics. I have some unfinished History homework for him that was due about three weeks ago, but thanks to the fact that he forgot about it after spending a few months in 1466, I still haven't handed it in.

-- **The Elementary Principal; Kuonji **is his name, I think. I haven't seen _him_ around ever, really, but he left the school for good at the end of last year. I remember seeing him at the Last Dance one time and being rather freaked - he looks the same age as us! I've also seen him around at opening ceremonies and the like, but apart from that he hasn't really affected my life too badly. Well, he did stuff to Mikan and Natsume, so I suppose I was almost included in that ... but not really. Pity.

-- **Hii-sama **is apparently gay, which I find rather weird - and I think most people I know think so too. I don't see her around much either, except in the annual Flower Princess festival, and her hair is really amazing. Really. Amazing.

-- **The High School Principal** is called Yukihara and is somehow related to Mikan. Wow. For him to be related to an immature and ditzy girl like her, that is quite unexpected ... maybe I'll see him more when I graduate into the High School ... he seems really cool, and so do his Alices. I would LOVE to have a Longetivity Alice or whatever it was that keeps him permanently looking young.


	26. Teammates

_A/N: Over the last weekend, I realised many things. **A)** people on the Internet can be real idiotic jerks,** B)** even if I write for myself and my love of Gakuen Alice, I still can get annoyed with annoying readers and insanely happy with happy readers, **C)** I am going to grow up to be an alcoholic ... oh no, **D)** I love sushi, **E)** I am actually amazing at improvised eyeshadow techniques for my Asian eyes (I would write detailed tips on doing it as well as my styles and colourings for you readers, but I don't think you want to read that right now) and nail varnish, **F)** my five-sided love polygon is slowly unravelling and** F)** no-one on the Internet is interested in my eyeshadow/sushi/alcoholic vomit/insanity anyway so why am I doing this?_

_Oh, and I didn't know what to do with this prompt. Sorry._

**Teammates**

It was spring cleaning week at the Academy, and Junior High Class B were cleaning out their lockers this particular morning. Natsume's method of cleaning was to stare moodily at the heap of junk inside his locker, and then set it on fire. Unfortunately enough this also scared his girlfriend Mikan, who then ran around screaming, "Fire! Fire!" at the top of her voice. A few other interesting ways of cleaning included Hotaru's team of CleanBot08s, which allowed Hotaru herself to stay in bed all day, and Luca's family of helpful mice who appeared to have a fondness for cleaning lockers.

Sumire's Alice wasn't much help for tidying, though. Gritting her teeth, she pulled at one of the more irritating random-things-I-found-stuck-in-my-locker, and accidentally banged her hand on the locker door.

"I hate cleaning!" she growled.

Luca looked round, and sent a few sympathetic mice over to help her. In Sumire's present mood though, she was more inclined to stress out by chasing them down the corridor and threatening to eat them rather than let them into her locker. (The traumatised mice eventually found their way back to Luca and the rest of their family; don't worry about them.)

"Eh ... ?"

Luca looked round again and saw Sumire standing by her open locker holding a creased, yellowing piece of paper. "What's that?" he said, walking over to see.

"My old Fanclub team made it ages ago ... I think," she said. Her eyes widened in surprise as she scanned the paper. "No no no you can't look at this!" she screeched, and batted his hand away from the paper.

Of course, this just made Luca even more suspicious. With an unusual display of energy and rebelliousness, he snatched the paper from his girlfriend's grasp and started reading. He tried to ignore the fact that he was rapidly running out of oxygen from the strangulation treatment ...

XXX

"_(crossed out) _Sumire is the best hahaha

shut up

Hana is stooooopid

wakakakakakako is stoopider and this isn't even Hana writing lol

_(a few scribbles)_

_(a few games of hangman and noughts-and-crosses)_

I WIN! see Sumire IS the best

_(more scribbles, and then a rough horizontal line)_

(Property of The Natsume And Luca Fanclub, Tier 3. Authorised personnel of the third level ONLY are permitted to edit, change, add on to or otherwise alter this document. Authorised personnel of the first level and above ONLY are permitted to look at, read, understand or otherwise comprehend this document.)

**The Twenty-Four Points of Luca's Greatness, Version 3.8**

#1. He is Natsume's best friend, and Natsume is cool, therefore Luca is cool.

#2. His Alice is awesome, and he's in the President's Alice type class (Somatics). This gives her valuable extra time with him.

#3. His bunny is so cute! cute cute cute cute cute cute cute _(drawing of bunny)_

#4. He's half Japanese and half French, which is really cool. He can also speak some French, which is even more cool. His mum is really pretty, so he must have inherited SOMETHING from her.

#5. His eyes are a really nice shade of blue ... they're like the colour of the sky, or clear water in a puddle, or just general niceness ...

#6. His hair is also a very nice shade of blonde, which goes really well with his eyes. It's also very unusual in a person who's at least half Japanese.

#7. His name, Luca Nogi, isn't particularly wonderful (like Hyuga, which is such a cool surname), but it isn't too bad either.

#8. He is a really, really nice person. He does so much for Natsume, and he's never said anything nasty to anyone as far as we recall, and is just ... such a wonderfully nice person. As we said.

#9. He's a Triple Star. OK, it's not as good as Natsume's Special Star, but it's still amazing.

#10. ... And he doesn't show off about it either, which shows his modesty and lack of pride and arrogance."

XXX

Luca was forced to let go of the sheet when his lungs finally gave out and refused to supply his brain with more oxygen. Sumire let go of his neck and grabbed the paper. She scrunched it up violently and threw it in the trashcan. She looked furious, so Luca made an "eep" sound and ran back to his own locker. He'd have to think about this later.

"Did you read any of it?!" she shouted to him down the corridor.

"N-no!! Definitely not!"

She didn't look convinced, but turned back to her half-emptied locker and started cleaning again.

"Later" meant when one of the less traumatised members of the helpful mouse family sneaked into the trashcan and retrieved the paper. Luca glanced at Sumire, saw that she was suitably distracted by a bag of catnip that Natsume had left in her locker last year, and started reading again.

XXX

"#11. The way he always has his mouth open in confusion or shock or surprise or bewilderment is so endearing, don't you think?

#12. His voice is less growly than Natsume and just sounds ... nicer. Sure, Natsume's voice is cool, but Luca's is more comforting to listen to ... and the way that he always sounds so nervous or shy about what to say is kind of sweet too.

#13. Those pictures that Hotaru sold to us of him hugging Piyo or dressing in Mikan's clothes were so funny!! Ahahahahahahaha!! It's funny to think of him being all unsmiling usually and so weird when he's with animals.

#14. He is physically perfect.

#15. And mentally perfect (as far as we know ... those Piyo-hugging sessions might have damaged his brain).

#16. He has a crush on Mikan, and is not sure that Natsume should get her ... that shows his love for a girl overcoming his devotion as a friend to Natsume. _(in a different handwriting) _Is that a good thing??? If he likes MIKAN and not one of us ...

#17. He's only a year younger than the President and the Vice-President, and the same age as the Secretary and the Treasurer. (Unlike, for example, the President's pet mind reader who is two years younger than her.)

#18. He looks so cute with bunny ears.

#19. His bunny is so cute!! Wait we already said that. _(drawing of angry cat-Sumire chasing bunny with exclamation mark over its head) _

#20. The way he stutters when he's nervous ... awwwww.

#21. He's very good-looking in a very different from Natsume. They make the perfect pair of guys to make a Fanclub about.

#22. He's not too tall ...

#23. ... or too short. (Sorry, I'm taking a few notes from our other list, the one for Natsume, is that OK?)

#24. He is LUCA NOGI and therefore amazing, we don't need to explain why.

**Written by the Fanclub, led by the President Sumire. **"

XXX

... wow ... that Fanclub really had been serious about its work, wasn't it? Luca felt a little confused (a mixture of "yay! someone made a list of how amazing I am!" and "this is really creepy" was brewing inside him), and then realised his mouth was hanging open again. He closed it, and threw the paper back into the bin.

Hopefully Sumire wouldn't notice that it had ever been read. (Damn it, that meant he would never be able to ask her and find out who the Vice-President and the Treasurer and the Secretary were.)


	27. Parents

_A/N: I'm sorry for not updating or doing very much for a long time. I have two more crack!oneshots definately planned, as well a not-so-cracky NatsuMikan (gasp!) oneshot (watch out for it later this year!), as well as a maybe-so-maybe-not Christmas fic (with multiple pairings, and I mean multiple) and a little (sorry ... it really _is _little ... D:) thing for someone's birthday. See, a lot of things to work on at once._

**Parents**

For this term's school holiday session, instead of going to her own family's house (where her dad will be that bit more distant, and her step-mother will be all awkward and unsure of what to say to this daughter from another time as usual), Sumire is going to Koko's house. (Her brother has already graduated last year and has left the school to work at some overseas company, so she doesn't have to worry about him too much.) She isn't really sure what to think about visiting Koko's family - will his parents be nice to their son's new girlfriend? Or will they just try to ignore her and pretend that their son doesn't have an Alice, doesn't go to a special school in Tokyo, doesn't have strange friends who can turn themselves into cats? But Koko doesn't seem to notice her fears - or maybe he does, but doesn't want her to worry too much about them. Or something. Meeting the parents is a tough experience ... Still, it doesn't matter right now; they're leaving for the train in a few hours' time anyway.

Koko's mother turns out to be as smiley and charming as Koko himself. She meets them at the station and quickly envelopes Koko in a crushing hug. Sumire is left feeling a little left out, but matters are resolved when his mother turns to her, beams, and says, "You must be Sumire! Well, come on into the car, we can talk more in the car." And so they are bundled into the vehicle - small and cosy, something that rather fits this family, Sumire thinks.

When they reach the cottage where Koko lives, Sumire is feeling a lot better about the prospect of meeting the rest of the family. His mother was nothing like what she had feared, instead, she had been so _nice_, and so happy about being friends with her son's girlfriend that it had seemed almost surreal. The fact that it had been Sumire who had caused Koko's happiness and who had been his first friend in the Academy simply added to her warm gratitude. She had wanted to talk to Sumire - and Koko, it feels odd that his mother calls him by his real name and not "Kokoroyomi" - about everything, from the living conditions of the High School dorms to the everyday experiences of school lessons and Sumire's favourite teachers. Soon enough, Sumire was feeling much more open to this woman who had been just two hours ago a perfect stranger.

But moving on, Koko's two sisters (twins, she remembers; Saeko and Sakimi) greet them at the front door. Behind them is Koko's brother, she assumes - still a young boy of twelve. He seems less pleased than the twins to see her. Oh well. Koko listens for a second, and tells her that it's just because the girl _he_ likes keeps rejecting him. Jealousy, that's all, and Sumire can well understand that. Later that week, Sumire still hasn't seen much of Hideki. Hedoesn't come out very much to talk with the rest of the family except for a little with Koko, and even then he goes out of the room when Sumire comes in.

Saeko and Sakimi are impossible to tell apart, Sumire finds. Everything they do seems identical. She knows one of them has bangs and short hair, and the other has permed hair, but she can't remember _which_ one. They are also equally friendly (if not slightly irritating ...) and chatter constantly about how unusual Sumire's natural deep green eyes and hair are, and ask her how much Koko has been annoying her by reading her mind at annoying times. They don't seem like school graduates at all. Often, Sumire finds herself making excuses to not talk to them; they are rather draining to be around. Much like Mikan, Koko says afterwards.

Koko's father is much like her own father, if not a little more cheerful and warm (then again, Sumire doesn't know her father well enough to draw any in-depth comparisons). But his mother is what Sumire likes most about this place. That was probably to be expected, though. Sumire has never had a mother to compare her with. Sumire is almost, or maybe she really _is_, sorry that she's not a part of this family.

"Yes you are," Koko says.

Sumire is pleasantly surprised by Koko coming up behind her, and turns her head to receive a pleasantly surprising kiss, but she thinks - _no, we're both part of Alice Academy. Not even you are part of this family, not _really_, not if you have to leave for the Academy in two days and if you only can see them for a week a year._

"Shut up," says Koko, before Sumire can open her mouth to say any of that. "We have each other, anyway - as well as everyone else in the Academy."

Sumire has to agree, and she does love the Academy deep down, but she still thinks it would be nice to really belong to a family, to have 'proper' parents and siblings. Maybe they could make that for themselves somewhere in the future.


	28. Children

_A/N:_ Please g_o and vote in the GARCAs! Link is on my profile. I haven't updated in ages because I haven't had time, I found it more fun to do challenges, and because I ran out of ideas. I'm not too happy with this chapter, but never mind._

**Children**

They are not children anymore, and Alice Academy is not really for them now. Sumire and Natsume are among the older of the children in the Higher School, and they will be leaving the school in a day or so along with half of the sixth form - most of the others in their friendship circles have another one or two years to wait.

XXX

"I can't believe you're going," says Luca while they are standing in the lunch queue.

Natsume merely grunts, while Sumire says, "I'm probably going to miss this place ..." and resists the urge to say 'you' instead of 'this place'. That ship sailed too long ago.

"Seriously, Curly? I'm just happy that I'm finally out of this sh-"

"Don't be rude in front of all the juniors," Luca interrupts.

"And don't call me that," says Sumire, glaring. Stupid Mikan and her stupid nicknames.

XXX

"I can't believe you're going," says Mikan tearfully. Sumire isn't sure how much of the tears are for her and how much is for Natsume, but that doesn't matter.

"Yeah, well, I can't bully you for ever," she replies. She's going to miss Mikan and her never-ending optimism, which she is sure that she is not going to find in anyone else out there. Apart from maybe that idiot with the smile.

XXX

"I can't believe you're going," says Koko somewhat teafully. Somewhat. The smile does tend to distract one from the generally depressed attitude that Koko was wearing today.

"Shut up and cheer up," snaps Sumire, peering under her bed and using her whiskers to search for lost socks. "You're going to make me get depressed too!"

"You should be depressed! You're leaving the school! Not to mention me ..."

Sumire sniffs, deactivates her Alice, and gets up. "As if that would depress me."

"Doesn't it?" Koko grins wider, looking more like his usual super-happy self.

"Yeah," says Sumire quietly. "... though maybe it's only because I'm leaving Natsume and Luca as well," she continues, watching for his reaction.

"Obviously I'm only sad because Hana-chan's going." There is a hint of laughter in his voice.

"If she catches you calling her that, you're gonna be too unconscious to be sad anymore." Sumire pauses - where did she leave that nail-polish remover? Is _that_ why it smelt so funny under the bed?

"Wait, was I meant to be depressed? I forgot what my point was," Koko says, looking a bit confused.

"Whatever, I don't care. Seeing as you're in here, can't you at least help me pack?"

Koko looks at the mound of clothes, books and various toiletries heaped up in the middle of the room. "You know I'm not good at packing or anything that needs organisation and skill," he says by way of an excuse.

"Yeah, I know, but stuffing socks into a bag doesn't require _skill!_"

"Ew, why would I want to touch your socks?"

"Shut it," says Sumire angrily, but Koko can hear her laughing in her head.

Something rings and Koko pulls out a alarm clock from underneath a stray pillow. "What's this for?"

Sumire glances up. "Oh right, the girls are having a party 'cos me and Hana are leaving," she explains. "Sorry, I gotta go now, and no you can't come."

'The girls' always refers to the ex-Fanclub members, and somehow Mikan - although she could be counted as a female friend of Sumire's - doesn't fall under the category of 'the girls'. Koko has never quite understood why; the politics and cliques of the female population have always been a mystery to him.

"Not even if Hana-chibi-chan's there?"

"Seriously, don't call her that. Even if you do hate her - and don't say that to her either," Sumire mutters absent-mindedly. She's back to sock-searching.

"Fine," says Koko, shrugging (happily). "See you this evening then?"

"Yeah," says Sumire, smiling for once. She ushers him out of the room, gives him a quick kiss, and sits down. She starts to get ready for the party.

"You do know that I _am_ actually going to miss you," says Koko through the door, his voice muffled. Just in case she hadn't got the message before.

_Of course I know, idiot. And you know that I'm going to miss you too, even if we do see each other every weekend like we said, and if you know there's no need to read my mind now, is there?_


	29. Birth

_Thank you so much for **100 **reviews! XDD_

**Birth**

Sumire is the ex-President of the Natsu-Luca Fanclub, and as such she is a big fan of Natsume and Luca. She is only the _ex-_President because of the disbandment of the actual Fanclub a few months ago - if Natsume had not started going out with Mikan and so made the whole _I-wish-he-was-my-boyfriend_ thing slightly awkward considering that Mikan was Sumire's friend, Sumire would still very much be the President.

As it is, she contents herself with snarling rude comments at any girl who dares to even look at Natsume and Luca without her consent. More out of fear of Natsume (he's been known to set more than one girl's hair aflame) than of Sumire (though she's pretty scary as well), the other girls grudgingly stop staring at him. They don't stop gossiping about him, though, and Sumire doesn't bother herself with interferring in that - she doesn't talk to those kind of people.

So that's what it is for the girls. And the boys? They don't understand the ex-Fanclub's obsession. Natsume himself doesn't say anything for or against this treatment, which in the ex-Fanclub's eyes is a definite appreciation for it. Luca just looks a little scared at the mention of the ex-Fanclub and Sumire. Yuu tends to avoid Sumire and the ex-Fanclub unless he needs to break up a cat-fight (which usually are along the lines of she-was-drooling-after-him-without-my-permission and he-doesn't-even-like-you-anyway-what's-your-deal?). The other boys, the ones who are more friendly with Sumire - Koko, Mochu, Kitsunememe - laugh at the ex-Fanclub's petty jealousies and promptly get strangled by the ex-President. They just don't _get _it.

But recently, even some of the ex-Fanclub members don't seem to be _getting _it either.

"What's the point of all this?" says Hana one day at lunch, scowling from under her overgrown bangs.

"What do you mean, what's the point?" says Sumire incredulously.

"I mean, we've disbanded the Fanclub, right? So why do you keep on all this stalking and stuff? If Natsume's got that Sakura girl now, this just seems so stupid to me now."

"We do not stalk!" says Sumire, outraged. "We just keep those annoying girls over there from interferring with Natsume and Mikan."

Mari and Wakako nod in agreement, but Hana doesn't look convinced.

XXX

Over the next few days, Sumire slowly sees what Hana's point is. Why _is_ she wasting her time being Natsume's fangirl? She hadn't really thought deeply about it all before, preferring instead to just ride through the fun of maintaining the (ex)-Fanclub, but she's _fourteen_. This has been going on for five years. They didn't disband the Fanclub for nothing... it's true; the whole disbandment hadn't really changed anything so far. Things had just gone back to normal after the first few days of the new era of ex-Fanclub-ness. And besides, she _knows_ she doesn't like Natsume in that way anymore, and she isn't honestly that jealous about Mikan or any of the other Natsume-admiring girls. She decided that ages ago when she decided that she liked Luca more. So why does she bother with the cat-fights and pointless anger?

Habit, probably.

She sits up, gets her whiskers out to feel for her notebook, and rips out the Fanclub pages.

XXX

"I've decided," Sumire starts, sitting up in a dignified way, "to stop the whole Fanclub thing."

"I thought we already did that?" Mari says, looking very confused.

"I mean properly," says Sumire. "Like, completely. No more caring whether Anna looks at Natsume in a funny way, that kind of stuff. We're going to have a fresh start."

"Again," adds Hana.

Mari and Wakako nod, and Hana rolls her eyes.


	30. Death

_A/N: Yes it's short and I don't care. But I updated in less than a day so isn't that great?_

**Death**

Sumire doesn't cry. It's just not what she does. She's not like Mikan, who breaks down into tears at every possible moment, from when Natsume pulls her skirt down to when she trips over in the playground. But she's not exactly like Hotaru, either, with emotions so cold and carefully hidden that she might as well be one of her own robots.

No, there have been those rare times when she _has _cried - although she usually prefers to spend her emotions shouting at other people and attacking her wardrobe.

There were those times when she first came (at the age of four, no less) and spent every night for the first two weeks crying for her father. At least her cat, Yuki, was there to comfort her a little. But now, Sumire can't remember those times. Only a distant feeling of missing home lingers in her memory. Well, she got over it soon enough. Instead, her four-year-old mind was filled with anger at her father abandoning her at this place without even telling her why, and her tears stopped.

There was that time when Yuki died, when Misaki-sensei had to bring back her frozen body from behind the greenhouse. Sumire refused to be comforted by anyone and dealt with it in her own way. By the end of the week, the school had ordered a new wardrobe for her room.

That, Sumire can remember. It wasn't _so_ far back that the memory has disappeared, although it's more of a sketchy outline than a real, stinging memory. She can remember wondering why she bothered with all those happy memories and good times, why she bothered even having friends, when Yuki could just _go_ like that.

But she has good friends now, having gotten over most of the anger and grief from back then. Perhaps none of them she allows to get as close to her as Yuki had been, but they are still good friends nonetheless. Mari, Hana, Wakako... they even made the Natsu-Ruka Fanclub together, and wrote down silly things in notebooks and gave each other titles like President (which Sumire is still rather proud of) and Secretary and all the rest. And then there's Mikan and Koko and Kitsunememe and then Luca and Natsume themselves who could all be counted as Sumire's friends.

Natsume, Sumire thinks with some bitterness, is probably one of those peope _born_ to be worshipped. Look at what he's got - an amazing Alice, looks that others would kill for, and intelligence to boot. Even his way of insulting every single person in the room - except Luca - in the space of two seconds without even having to raise his voice could be seen as a talent to love and envy.

Sometimes, usually in the exam period, Sumire would cry about that. Natsume had everything - all of the above, and then some. He even had a Fanclub, for crying out loud. And normally Sumire would be proud to lead this Fanclub, but sometimes she wondered why. As for herself, _she _wasn't a Special Star, her Alice was quite honestly embarrassing to use, and she'd never get that top student award because of her god-awful cooking skills which just wouldn't improve, no matter what she tried. And, well, _she _thought she was pretty, but it seemed that very few of the boys thought likewise.

Sometimes, it seemed to her that she was nothing very special at all, and she would cry for it.


	31. Sunrise

**Sunrise**

Sunrise is the beginning of a bright new day.

Sumire doesn't really feel like getting up. She's never been a terrifically _morning_ sort of person, and today should be no exception. And in addition to that, there's the fact that she broke up with Luca a week ago, and she still feels like month-old cow crap dumped on the sidewalk. Why, though, is something she hasn't quite pinned down.

It's not like she was in love with him and he dumped her. Now, _that_ would be depressing - but even then, she'd just shrug it off and say that she didn't care, because when had she ever cared about stupid stuff like that? At least that's what Koko says, and he's usually right, so there it is. It's not like that.

It's not like she felt guilty about breaking _his_ heart. Is it? He never really seemed that much into her anyway - actually, he never seemed very much into anything, except his bunny - and Sumire isn't one to hang around feeling guilty about anything. That was another feeling that Sumire shrugged off quite easily.

Maybe it's not even about Luca. She's not really thinking about him or what they did wrong (what he did wrong), if she was honest with herself. It was more like all her friends were thinking about him, and they were the first ones to say, "She's pissed off 'cos she broke up with her boyfriend," in an explanatory sort of way when she kicks an Elementary kid out of the comfy seat, or when she yells at Mikan and Natsume, who are still blissfully together.

But then... there's nothing else depressing in her life at this moment, so maybe the reason is just too blurry for her to see it. Sumire, as expert as she is in analysing other people's relationships and feelings, doesn't care much for her own.

XXX

Sunrise is the beginning of a bright new day.

Wakako is worried about Sumire, because she's been yelling at the ex-Fanclub even more than usual this past week. And that's no surprise, because she _has_ just broken up with Luca, who is as dreamy and sweet and cute as any perfect movie-star boyfriend. Even though Sumire had often complained to her about how quiet and uncompulsive and passive Luca was, Wakako had always dismissed that as Sumire's usual tendancy to complain about the flaws of _anything_.

Wakako-and-the-ex-Fanclub's reasoning for Sumire's depression (aided by Koko's mind-reading therapy) went along the lines of this. Sumire had always worshipped Luca since he came - going out with him must have been a great dream for her to fantasised about in previous years, which of course meant that she had great expectations along with it. You couldn't really expect quiet Luca to live up to that.

Oh well.

She folds up the last sock, and goes to knock on Sumire's door to force her down to breakfast.

XXX

Sunrise is the beginning of a bright new day.

Koko practically leaps out of bed (like usual) and rummages around in the heap of clothes on the floor for a clean-ish set of Single Star uniform (like usual). Next, he sits down and wonders what to do next, because he's still got six minutes until he can wake up anyone else (it's an unwritten rule that "Koko is NOT allowed to wake anyone up before 7:30am!!") and he did all his homework last night. This is also reasonably usual.

Casting around for the sleepy thoughts of his neighbours, Koko absentmindedly probes around the Junior High Dorm. Block (Final Year (Boys)) in seach of entertainment.

An image of a cow and a fork and a block of Stilton cheese and a bulldog called Benny-Evita that could fly. Kitsumeme had the strangest dreams, thought Koko.

Mikan. In a something-or-other that looked... ew. Koko reminded himself never to get inside Natsume's head unless he _wanted_ to be traumatised for life, a rule which he always forgot by the next morning.

Bunnies... a lot of them, running away from a cat which Luca couldn't calm using his pheromones. That looked rather nightmare-ish, though Koko. He wondered if the half-past-seven rule would still be in place if the subject in question was having nightmares?

Wandering into Luca's mind made his own mind think of Sumire, and then of Anna (who he was meant to be going out with), and then of Sumire again, where it stayed. He wondered if she was alright. Then he realised it was 7:31am, and therefore the right time to wake people up.

Sunrises were always bright for Koko.

XXX

_A/N: I don't like the last bit, because the atmosphere is too humorous to suit the rest. Still, I don't think Koko could ever be anything _except_ humorous, so there we go._


End file.
